Per Innamorarsi
by drjekyllmshyde
Summary: The arrival of a strange young man in Gaia Turri and her father's household will change her life in more ways than one. AU loosely based on Susan Kay's Phantom set in Rome, pre-Leroux. Erik/OC.
1. Chapter 1

Giovanni would never forget the day he first met Erik. The aging master mason came to the site of his latest project at twilight. In the light of the setting sun, he admired the work that had been done that day with a pleased smile. Being too old to stay on site all day and having no son to apprentice, it was so difficult for Giovanni to be certain the work being done was up to his standards. Finally he had found a young stone mason to supervise the workers up to his standards it seemed. He was about to return home when a blur of movement caught his attention. It was probably his aging eyes, but a strange feeling prompted Giovanni to investigate.

"Hello? Is somebody there?" He called out into the fading light. Again there was movement from high up in the framework of the building, little more than a shadow against the increasing darkness. What sort of specter was this? The shadow moved rapidly along a beam, leaping with cat-like grace to a lower beam and then a lower one still until. The specter made a final leap to the ground as Giovanni moved after it, and the aging man watched with horror as the shade's legs slipped out from under him. It had been an abnormally cold year in Rome, a light layer of snow hiding the iced ground beneath. The figure had simply misjudge his leap and had slipped on the ice… Giovanni moved to the dark mass as quickly as he could on arthritic legs, crouching by the curled up figure of a young man in a black mask.

The man could have been no more than twenty years old, and was strewn out unconscious in the snow. He had hit his head on the frozen ground hard enough to put him out cold. Giovanni frowned, and patted the boy on his chest without any place free on his face to touch. "Boy. Boy, wake up," he commanded, but there was no response. This deepened his frown. The boy was breathing, that was something. With considerable effort, the stiff man picked up the boy who was surprisingly light for his height he was pleased to discover. Slowly but steadily, Giovanni carried the boy back to his home.

"Gaia! Gaia my dear, run and fetch the physician," he shouted into the house as soon as he was able to open the door.

"Papà, are you hurt?" A young woman of seventeen summers emerged from her bedroom and rushed down the stairs, eyes wide at the sight of her father carrying the black mass of a boy. "Papà, who is that?"

"I don't know any more than you do. You must fetch the physician, he's struck his head and won't wake," Gaia nodded and rushed out the front door, up the street to the home of the physician. The doctor left his supper early at Gaia's bidding, rushing over with the girl to look after the boy. Giovanni had laid the boy out on the sofa and was debating with himself whether or not to remove the boy's mask to check for further injury when the physician entered.

Giovanni supervised as the physician worked on the boy. "It looks like only a mild concussion, but call on me if he hasn't woken in the morning," the man finally announced, and Giovanni sighed with relief. Neither of them noticed the young woman eavesdropping at the stairs. "I've never seen the boy before, is he new on your crew?"

The old man shook his head. "No, Sergio. I haven't the slightest idea who is or where he's from. But the man moves like a cat. I've never seen anything like it. If he hadn't cracked his head he would have gotten away from me and I would have left thinking he was a ghost," Giovanni admitted, rubbing the back of his neck. "I will keep an eye on him tonight. Thank you for coming at such an odd hour."

"For you Giovanni, I would come at any hour," the physician promised, patting the man's back. "How is your back?"

"Stiff and sore, but holding out," Giovanni promised. "Go home to your wife. Tell her I say hello," with that the physician left, and Giovanni stoked the fire before sitting wearily in the chair nearest to it.

Gaia emerged from her hiding place, bringing her father a large glass of red wine. "Will he be okay, Papà?" She asked, with a curious glance over at the man. What was he hiding under that strange mask?

Giovanni smiled tiredly and accepted the wine. "Yes my dear, he will be fine. If he's not awake by morning we're to call on the physician again. I didn't mean to startle you," the man frowned, but his daughter shook her head gently.

"It's fine. I'm just glad you're okay. You know I worry about you when you go out in the cold."

"I am old, Gaia, but I am a long way from dead. You are a worry wart just like your mother, God rest her soul," he teased, earning a smile from daughter.

"Only for you, Papà," she promised, kissing the top of his head. "Are you sleeping down here tonight then?"

"I am," upon hearing this Gaia brought out a blanket, and added another log to the fire in her best attempt to fend off the man's aches and pains brought on by the cold. "What would I do without you Gaia?" The man smiled, so grateful for his daughter in his old age. His wife had died many years ago, and while caring for himself had been easy in his youth a lifetime of masonry had been incredibly hard on his body. His beloved youngest daughter was the only one of his children still unmarried and able to remain home with her father.

It was Gaia who was awake and about when Erik woke in the morning. Opening his eyes, he groaned involuntarily at the immense pain at the back of his head and shut his eyes tightly against the light. Sitting up, he clutched the back of his head and winced, checking his hand for blood and feeling a pang of relief when it was dry. Gaia moved out of the kitchen when she heard movement from the room, and smiled politely. "Good morning. How do you feel?" She inquired, though she could see on his face he was in pain and alarmed at her presence.

"Fine. Where am I?" He demanded in Italian, but with an accent she didn't quite recognize. Perhaps he was from northern Italy…

"You're in the house of Master Giovanni Turri. My father's house," she told him, nodding to the sleeping older man by the fire. "Would you like something to drink?"

"No," snapped the man, moving to his feet somewhat dizzily. Gaia moved forward, ready to catch him in case he fell. This caused the young man to tense noticeably.

Gaia's brow furrowed. "I'm not going to hurt you. Papà found you on the ground at his build site, you hit your head," she explained. "He brought you home so the physician could have a look at you and so you wouldn't freeze. Please, have some tea. It may help your head."

Nervously Erik touched the back of his head, only barely remembering the events of the night before. "… All right. Thank you," Gaia disappeared back into the kitchen just as her father stirred. Giovanni smiled heartily when he noticed the man was awake and now seated clutching the back of his head, repeatedly checking for the presence of blood.

"Good morning young man. I'm glad to see you're awake and well. You took quite a fall."

"Are you the man I was running from?" The man demanded so harshly, Giovanni couldn't help but feel guilty in spite of the fact the man had been trespassing on his property.

"Well, yes. But you needn't have, I have no desire to harm you. I am Giovanni, the contractor of the building you were perched on," the older man told him.

"…You were the contractor? You designed it too, then?"

Giovanni nodded with a smile. "Yes, I did," any upset that the man had been intruding was gone in an instant at the opportunity to discuss his work. "Do you like it?"

The man began to nod before wincing. "It is remarkable, Signore."

"Please, Giovanni will do. Signore or Master Turri if you must. What is your name, young man?"

After a long moment of hesitation, the masked man spoke again. "Erik, Signore."

"Only Erik?"

Again the hint of a nod, but no words. Gaia emerged from the kitchen with a tray of tea and two cups. She poured one for each man while they spoke.

"Are you interested in architecture and masonry, Erik?" Giovanni asked, curiously, smiling his thanks to his daughter.

"I am, Signore. Very much so," the way the man spoke caused Giovanni to think he may have overestimated his age, through he didn't say as much.

"Well then, if you're interested I can show you the site when you're feeling well. I'm always eager to share my art," the old man smiled so warmly, Erik couldn't help but feel more at ease.

Gaia studied the man as she handed him his cup, diverting her eyes the moment he caught her watching him. "…I would enjoy that, Signore," he finally said, watching the girl as she left back into the kitchen.


	2. Chapter 2

Just before Lunch, Erik's head had stopped throbbing enough for him to stay on his feet and walk to the work site where he had fallen. Giovanni could tell the boy was nervous, and did his best to put the young man at ease. He walked slow and well away from the young man, and talked genially as was his way. "Where did you develop an interest in architecture?" He asked.

Erik was quiet for a long while before deciding the old Italian probably couldn't do him any harm even if he wanted to. His stiff movements and leathery face made Erik think he was well into his sixties, a rarity for men in his field Erik knew. Accidents in masonry were remarkably common, and even if a stonemason didn't die of an accident labor-intensive nature of the work often destroyed the body after its forth decade. Perhaps the man was younger than he looked; his daughter was quite young, after all. "In my youth."

"In your youth?" The old man's dark eyes shone as he laughed. "Oh how youth is wasted on the young! How old are you, my boy?"

"Sixteen. Seventeen by now, actually," Erik answered, quietly. The man's laugh stopped as he looked over at the boy, stunned. Judging by his height and his quiet nature, Giovanni had been sure the man was at least two years older than he claimed.

"Certainly not!"

Erik nodded, nervously. "Why, Signore?"

"You are simply and old soul is all. You're only a boy yet you behave every bit a man," Erik hummed thoughtfully at that. "You have a master then?"

"Not in architecture, no Signore," he had a master in a far different, often more sinister art. Herbs and remedies were a tricky, dangerous art that could be used to heal and destroy and required extensive training to master. Erik had left his training before its completion but was eager to return to his education if the opportunity ever presented itself.

Giovanni didn't press the subject of what he had studied, feeling that it was not a topic he wanted to hear. Finally they arrived at the site while the workers were off having lunch. Completely alone, Erik wandered onto the site and admired it in a way only a trained eye would be able to. The work was in its earliest stages of development, little more than a wooden skeleton, but Giovanni could tell that Erik saw so much more.

"It's a manor for a wealthy young couple. You're standing in the-"

"Dinning hall," Erik finished, and Giovanni nodded with a smile. "Eighteen feet tall, one hundred and seventy square feet. Will the doorways be arches or rectangular?"

"Arches, of course," Giovanni's tanned leathery face pulled into a smile. Erik was beginning to think the man would never desire to harm so much as a fly, a thought that put him considerably more at ease. "We are in Rome, after all. My ancestors invented the arch you know," he teased the boy gently, and thought he even caught a hint of a smile on the boy's mouth.

"They don't understand the arch in France. So many buildings attempt it but never like I've seen here. It's going to be a stunning building. Marble or granite stonework?"

"So you're from France, then? The way you move I would have thought you were a Gypsy. French architecture is something, but no country will ever rival the architecture of Italy. I would prefer to use granite for the sake of the building's structure, but the owners prefer marble," Giovanni explained, and Erik's eyes rolled under his mask.

"The wealthy are always looking to flaunt their wealth, even at the cost of the integrity and artistry of the building."

Giovanni nodded his agreement, surprised at the boy's passion considering his age. He had a remarkable eye, considering he was never formally trained. Natural talent like Erik's was increasingly hard to find. Slowly the workers began to trickle back into the site, and the boy became immediately tense. He moved back to Giovanni's side, and the aging man squeezed the boy's shoulder comfortingly. "Come along. Gaia will have lunch ready for us."

Erik hesitated, looking past the building site to the open road beyond as if he was considering running. It would be easy; the dark-haired, dark-eyed old Italian would never be able to catch him and he doubted if any of the workers would give chase. But it was so beautiful here! The buildings were ancient works of art, the history was phenomenal. The old man was harmless… kind, even. Erik couldn't think of anyone he had met who would have thought to pull him unconscious from the snow, let alone take him into their home and tend to him. Winter well underway, and even if he left he would have to cross the Alps before the ice melted; perhaps it was best to stay, at least for now.

The pair returned to Giovanni's house, and sure enough they were greeted with a wall of wonderful smells the moment the entered the door. Erik hadn't realized how hungry he was until the smell of food struck him. Giovanni heard the boy's stomach rumble and laughed. "We'll get you fed properly my boy. How long have you been living with Italians?"

"I've been living on my own, not with Italians," Erik admitted, quietly, embarrassed that his hunger was so obvious.

"I thought that might have been the case," Giovanni smiled. "Well you are in for a treat. Lunch is the most important meal of the day, and my daughter is the best cook in all of Rome."

"Nonsense, Papà," Gaia scolded from the kitchen, turning to smile at the pair. Erik was used to the beauty of Mediterranean women, with their tanned skin, full lips, and dark hair. It was Gaia's eyes that made her different from the rest of the Italian women Erik had encountered, he realized; there was a remarkable sort of sadness and longing in those dark eyes, very unlike the mirth in her father's. Even though she smiled with her mouth, it did not meet her eyes. "Come and eat, I made plenty for everyone."

The meal was a regular feast for Erik, with large servings of hand-made pasta with a rich hearty sauce, broiled fish and clams, cold cuts of dried meats, and free flowing wine the likes of which Erik had never tasted. It was easily the most remarkable meal Erik had ever eaten, and he was suddenly glad he decided not to run.

"Well, what do you think?" Giovanni smiled, immensely amused by the boy's voracious appetite.

"I think you were right, this must be the best meal in all of Rome."

Gaia tipped her head and smiled modestly. "Well, thank you. There's fruit and tea if you're still hungry."

"I don't think I could eat another bite," Erik promised.

"Good," announced Giovanni. "After la siesta, we have a lot to do."

Under the mask, Erik raised a brow before Giovanni continued. "I am going to take you on a tour of some of the architectural masterpieces of Rome. It's been ages since I've had the pleasure of talking art with such a natural talent," the man smiled, and Erik smiled some privately at the praise.

Suddenly there was a knock at the door and Gaia rose to answer it. The moment she opened it she closed it again with an annoyed look. The knocking began again and was more persistent this time. Gaia shot an apologetic look at her father and their guest before opening the door and slipping outside to deal with whoever it was that was knocking. Giovanni sighed some.

"I have six daughters. Gaia is the youngest, and the only one who remains unmarried but not for lack of suitors. All of my girls are among the most desirable in Rome, but Gaia must be the only woman in the whole city to turn down even the most persistent of men," he mused, pouring himself and his guest more wine.

"She doesn't wish to marry?" Erik asked, having little knowledge of marriage except that it was an important part of European life.

"If she does it is news to me," Giovanni frowned. "I worry she remains unwed because of my failing health. She's made herself the woman of the house, and not my daughter. I do hope it's just that none of the men interest her and not because of her feeling of duty to me."

Gaia slipped back inside and cleared the table. Giovanni couldn't help but pry. "Who was at the door?"

"Marco." She said simply.

"Why didn't you show him in?"

"Because he has more interest in getting under my skirt than he does putting a ring on my finger," Gaia announced with mature rationale beyond her age. "If he showed half as much dedication to his work as he does to winning my favor, maybe I would consider him," her words spoke one thing but her voice spoke another thing entirely; she wouldn't consider the man even if he were a prince, Erik could tell.

Giovanni merely shook his head with a sigh. "Well what do you say, Erik? Shall we go tour Rome?"


	3. Chapter 3

Gaia did not trust the boy her father had let into their house. Giovanni was a good hearted, wealthy man who was renowned in Rome for his generosity of wealth and service. Too often her father let people into their lives who wanted nothing more than to use him for his money, his talent as a stone mason or his influence within the community. Her father might not have seen it, but the sudden appearance of the young man in combination with his insistence of concealing his face alarmed Gaia.

One morning before her father woke, she decided to break air of Italian hospitality she had been working hard to keep up ever since the boy had arrived. Gaia made a pot of tea and brought it down to the boy, who insisted on staying in the basement rather than in one of her sisters' rooms higher up in the house. Balancing the tray on her hip, she knocked gently in case the boy was asleep. Erik opened the door the slightest crack as if unsure of who was attempting to invade his privacy, a move Gaia found strange considering it was only she and her father in the house.

"I brought tea," she offered, showing him the tray. "I left it black but brought a lemon and milk and sugar, in case you wanted them."

"That was kind of you," Erik remarked, opening the door to let her in. The bed was so neat Gaia wasn't sure it had been slept in at all, and on the desk were metallic parts that made Gaia freeze.

"You've been in my room!" She accused, putting the tray of tea down and glaring at the boy hard. "I knew there was something wrong with you, you're a regular snoop and a thief!"

Erik's eyes widened at the accusation, and his voice was pleading and innocent. "I haven't been in your room, I swear it! What would make you think-"

"You mean to tell me those aren't my gears?" Gaia demanded, moving boldly to the desk to inspect the metallic parts. "Where did you get them then?"

"Why do you have gears?" Erik asked, suddenly curious. He hadn't dared even venture upstairs let alone into any of the rooms but the basement

Gaia gaped some when she realized these were truly not taken from her room. In her haste she had revealed a secret she had been successfully keeping for going on two years.

"…If I tell you, you must swear not to tell Pap," Erik nodded without hesitation, and Gaia frowned some thoughtfully. If her father knew what she was doing it would surely break his heart… "I've been building watches and music boxes. I sell them and save the money."

"What are you saving it for?" The boy pressed, sounding so genuinely interested Gaia couldn't help but answer him.

"I don't want to live in Rome anymore… I'm saving to move north into the country. I want to buy a vineyard, maybe run a little bed and breakfast. Something quiet and far from city life. Please, you can't tell Papà," Gaia reminded him firmly.

Erik nodded. "You have my word," he promised. "But why would it be so bad if he knew? He seems like such a reasonable man."

"He's old, and his health is leaving him as he ages. I love him dearly, but I don't want him to know how much I hate it here. He might think I don't want to care for him anymore, and I do. He needs me to."

"That's why you won't marry. You don't want to tie yourself here after your father dies?"

Gaia sat in the chair at the desk with a frown. Her initial distrust of the boy vanished in the light of their conversation; she had never talked to anybody about this before, not even her sisters. It was too easy to just sit and talk now that she was being asked. "Sort of. I also just… don't like any of these men. I suppose my standards are too high. They're perfectly handsome and I'm sure they'll make some pretty little tart extremely happy someday. But I don't love them, and I don't want to marry without love."

Erik nodded his understanding. "I've heard that the French and the Italians have very similar views on love. I wouldn't say your standards are too high if love is your only standard," he told her, quietly.

The girl frowned. "Thank you, I guess. Look, I've been meaning to talk to you-"

"I've been meaning to talk to you, too," Erik interrupted, clearly very nervous. "Your father has asked me to serve as his apprentice. That would mean my stay here would be a lot longer than I anticipated. I don't feel like it's only my decision to make; your father is okay with me staying, but this is your household also. I get the feeling you don't like me very much, so I wanted to make sure accepting his offer wouldn't offend you or make you uncomfortable. If you want me to leave, I will leave at once."

The boy's sincerity shocked Gaia; she had not expected him to display such nervousness and sincerity. Gaia chewed the inside of her lip thoughtfully before speaking. "Are you trying to take my father's money, Erik?" She asked him bluntly, and once again Erik's eyes widened at the accusation.

"No, not at all!" He insisted with a deep frown.

"Then what are you hiding? You're so private! You won't even tell us your surname, and you hide your face like someone who doesn't want his identity known. If you're as honest as you seem what is it you're hiding from?"

"I'm not hiding from anyone, Gaia, not how you think," Erik promised with surprising sincerity. "Your father treats me with more humanity than anyone I've ever come across, but he isn't paying me a thing. I only want to learn from him. Nobody's ever given me a chance like this before; I don't like staying in one place, but it's an opportunity I don't want to pass up."

After a long moment, Gaia nodded. "Okay. I don't mind if you stay. But if I so much as get a feeling you're up to something- which reminds me. Why do you have watch parts down here? And if you didn't steal them where did you get them from?"

Erik gaped for a moment. "I… did steal them. Just not from you. I've never been into your room, I swear on my life. I'm something of a magician. I had an idea for a new illusion I wanted to try, it requires small geers."

"You stole them? From who?"

"I pick pocketed a handful of watches," he explained, opening a drawer to show her a pile of gutted watches.

"Erik you can't just take things that aren't yours! Put the watches back together."

"But-"

"Put them back together and leave them by my door so I can bring them to the police. Hopefully they'll be able to find their rightful owners," Gaia told him firmly. "I can make whatever you need, leave a list of what you'd like with the watches."

Erik frowned, but nodded. He felt worse about taking something from the daughter of his new master than he did from complete strangers, especially when he knew she was selling her work. "Thank you, Erik," she offered, upon seeing his frown, and he nodded again. "Look, I'm not slapping your hands," Gaia frowned, folding her arms. "You're free to do whatever you want, I just don't want Papà associated with a thief."

"I understand, Gaia. I aim to make him proud," Erik told her quietly. "Would you let me pay you for the watch parts?"

Gaia raised a brow at the boy. "Do you have the money to?"

"Not right now, but I can earn it," he promised, but it was clear Gaia didn't believe him.

"Why don't we just say you owe me? I'll call on you if I need a favor," she suggested, worried he might resort to pick pocketing again just to pay her. Erik seemed to find this idea agreeable as the frown left his lips and he nodded.

"Okay. Thank you, Gaia."

The young woman smiled her welcome and turned to leave the room. Erik watched her go, curiously. These Italians were so different than the rest of the world, he thought. They were not looking to extort him; on the contrary, Gaia had been worried he was extorting them. They wanted nothing from him, not even Giovanni who was offering him room and board on top of an apprenticeship in an art form Erik adored. Every day Erik became increasingly glad he had not run when the opportunity presented itself.


	4. Chapter 4

At Gaia's request, Erik put the watches he had stolen back together, and in the middle of the night left them outside the girl's room along with a list of the parts he would need for his project. When he woke the next morning, Erik was surprised to find a neat paper bag outside his door filled with all the parts he would need. At breakfast the next morning he had been about to thank her when Giovanni walked into the dining room and he thought better than risking revealing her secret.

Most of the day was spent with Giovanni either on a work site, or in the house drawing and redrawing architectural designs and planning out the stonework. Giovanni certainly made the boy work for his keep, and from sunup to sunset architecture was Erik's life. Even during the lunch hour Erik and Giovanni typically were discussing the finer points of some building or another while Gaia cooked and cleaned.

What the girl did during the day, neither Erik nor Giovanni knew what the girl did all day long, but she never seemed to leave the house; no matter what time of the day the men returned home, it seemed Gaia was there to greet them with food and drink. Erik heard more about Gaia at the work sites than he did in her own home. He was shocked at the amount of crude gossip that went on among the workers, whose mouths were sometime dirtier than those of the Gypsies.

Erik quickly learned the man at the door when he first arrived was the current head of the construction site from which Erik had fallen on the day he met Giovanni. The old man gave Marco Lupis full run of the site, and under his eye construction was now nearing completion almost as Erik had pictured it when he first arrived. It wasn't long before Erik grew a great dislike for the man; his talent was not natural but rather faked and forced, and his mannerisms were common and crude. Erik didn't know why, but the way he spoke about Gaia with the other workers made him furious.

"Didn't you call on Signorina Turri again yesterday, Marco?" One of the men asked, wiping sweat from his brow with a grin. "Tell us about it!"

"Yes Marco, tell us!" The other men chimed upon seeing Giovanni was out of earshot and half asleep besides. None of them seemed to notice Erik in his perch high above them, listening intently at the mention of Gaia.

The handsome dark-haired man didn't hesitate to answer. "I did visit My Love yesterday. She must have known I would visit, so beautiful we she! She was wearing a powder blue chiffon dress, as soft as the sky. It dipped down so low about her breasts I would have surely suffocated if I tried to kiss between them," Marco explained, gesturing his hands over his chest. The statement elicited catcalls from a handful of the men who urged him to continue. "She let me in, and promptly informed me her father wasn't in. I told her I hadn't come to see her father, but she knew that of course. She kissed me good and firm on the mouth with such gusto I fell back against the door and closed it. As soon as the door was closed she grabbed my belt and tore it off so eagerly she nearly tore the buckle clean off-"

"Lies!" Erik shouted from his perch, dropping down angrily. He was easily five years the man's junior but stood a solid half foot over Marco, who still did not seem the least bit intimidated.

"Well! What have we got here, boys?" Marco grinned maliciously. "A masked spy?"

"Gaia's never let you in, let alone touched you," Erik accused. "Your stories are all slanderous lies."

Marco raised a brow. "Well would you listen to this! Gaia's never let me in, has she? I think somebody's jealous."

Erik gaped some under the mask, suddenly appearing far less threatening. Marco laughed heartily. "It's true! Do you really think a girl like her would ever give a boy like you a chance to win her love? You are mad! But I have been curious, boy… what did you do to become Master Turri's apprentice?"

"I merely showed talent, something he clearly did not see in any of his former help," Erik sneered, and the group of men laughed.

"Why you little freak, I'll teach you to talk to me like that!" Marco snarled and threw himself upon the boy in a violent fit. The men cheered when Erik fell, but it was mere moments before their cheers turn savage as Erik leapt to his feet with the grace of a jungle cat, seeing only red as he attacked the older man ferociously. A sickening snap rang through the air quickly followed by a yelp from the older boy. In a whirl of movement several more the men from the site joined in on the fight, converging upon Erik like a pack of wolves.

The movement and shouts from the site woke Giovanni from his slumber on the outskirts of the site, and the man immediately got to his feet and moved quickly as he could over to the fight. Before Giovanni could even reach the scene of the fight, the brawl ended abruptly with all of the workers stumbling back in stunned silence. Giovanni pushed his way to the center of the crowd and frowned deeply at the sight of his apprentice laying out on the ground, maskless and bruised in the dirt. He stirred, only semi-conscious and bleeding from his wreck of a face. Kneeling by the boy, Giovanni stroked his hideously misshapen face warmly. "Who did this?" He demanded, and when the old man glared at the group and still receive no answer he barked. "Who did this?"

Jumping some at the man's harshness, Marco nursed his broken arm. "He started it, Master Turri," the boy lied effortlessly. Looking to the other men, Giovanni frowned.

"Is this true?" Each and every man nodded his agreement with Marco, and Giovanni's frown deepened. "You, help me carry him home," the old man commanded of one of the less injured looking workers, who obeyed without hesitation. The young man had been putting on weight since he arrived in Italy, and while he wasn't too difficult to carry while he was emaciated he would certainly be too heavy for the arthritic old man now. Giovanni picked up the leather mask out of the dirt and brushed it off to carry it home.

Gaia came bustling downstairs as soon as the door was opened. "Papà, Erik, you're home early… Papà, what happened?" She demanded as one of the workers from the site laid Erik down on the sofa Giovanni had first deposited him on so many weeks ago. Quickly she moved to the kitchen and poured out the water she had put on for tea into a bowl with a clean cloth, bringing it to her father as he ushered the worker out the door and locked it behind him. Before he could stop her, Giovanni heard Gaia gasp and the bowl of hot water clatter to the floor and his heart sank in his chest. Erik stirred with a groan and Gaia nearly jumped out of her skin.

Giovanni stooped over to pick up the bowl, and placed it firmly in her hands. "More hot water, Gaia. Now, please," he added when she hesitated. Quietly she nodded and moved off into the kitchen to put on another pot of water to boil. In a few moments she brought it out again, and having composed her nerves she sat on the floor by the sofa and cleaned the dirt and blood of Erik's face gently with the hot water. The boy flinched as he came to wakefulness, as much from the hot water as from the nakedness of his face.

"Calm down, it's only water," she told him firmly, and Giovanni ran a hand over his daughter's hair to caution her to watch her tone.

"Gaia, I know it's a little early but if you would please start lunch I think it would be much appreciated," he smiled sadly to the girl, who nodded reluctantly and moved back into the kitchen to cook, looking back over her shoulder frequently.

Erik cowered into the sofa as far from the man as he could. "My mask, where is my mask?" Quietly Giovanni sat on the edge of the sofa and handed the boy the black leather mask. With greedy fingers Erik snatched the leather up and placed it on his face with surprising grace. Once his face was covered her relaxed some, but not much. His nerves were on edge, and his whole posture seemed to radiate with shame and disgrace. "I'll be gone in the morning, Master Turri…" he promised meekly, and Giovanni clicked his tongue disapprovingly.

"You had better not be young man," he scolded. "In this household, we do not run from our problems, we confront them and solve them. Tell me what happened."

Gingerly Erik sat up, eyes fixated on his knees as he spoke quietly, except for the occasional glance into the kitchen at Gaia. "Marco was saying he and Gaia… He was implying something happened between them yesterday, while you were showing me the Arch of Severus. I called him a liar, he accused me of being jealous and suggested that I might have done something inappropriate to become your apprentice. When I told him it was because I was more talented than him, he struck me. I don't remember what happened after that…" he frowned quietly, a gesture that was mirrored by Giovanni.

Gaia moved to the doorway and announced lunch was ready. Giovanni helped the boy to his feet and to a chair at the kitchen table with a comforting pat to his back. "Gaia, was Marco Lupis by here yesterday?"

"Yes, Papa. I told him you weren't here and when he tried to come in anyway I threatened to throw a pot of boiling water on his handsome face if he didn't leave. Why?" The old man trusted his daughter implicitly, far more than he trusted the gossip of a lowly stone mason.

"No reason," Giovanni promised, looking to Erik who lowered his eyes. The aging man squeezed the boy's shoulder comfortingly as Gaia piled food on their plates. He quietly hoped Erik would not make good on his word to be gone by tomorrow morning.


	5. Chapter 5

A week after the fight on the work site, a knock came at Gaia's bedroom door in the early hours of the morning. She was up early as usual, tinkering with her latest music box when she heard the knock. In a whirl of action, Gaia put everything she had been working on into a box and quickly shoved it beneath her bed along with the spectacles she used to work on the minute parts. Messing up her hair as if she'd only just gotten out of bed, she moved to open the door just a crack before breathing a sigh of relief and opening it fully. "Erik, you startled me," she accused, moving inside to sit on the edge of the bed.

Erik remained in the doorframe, not daring to step inside. "I'm sorry. I wanted you to be the first person to see my trick," Gaia smiled and beckoned him inside.

"Come in and show me then! Close the door behind you so we don't wake my father," Erik obeyed with a small smile, closing the door and moving to sit beside but well away from her on the bed. Reaching into his pocket and withdrawing what looked to Gaia like a small, metallic woman wearing a skirt made of white chiffon. There was a small key on her back just above the waist of the skirt that Gaia inspected curiously.

"Wind her up and hold out your palms flat as a board," Erik urged, and Gaia did as she was bidden. They both watched as the dancer flowed to life, a small melody tinkling in the background as she moved up onto the points of her toes, maintaining remarkable balance. In spite of the obvious mechanical nature of the device, it seemed to flow almost as gracefully as any real dancer Gaia had ever seen. Her eyes widened in awe at its beauty and complexity.

"Erik how did you do this? This is incredible, I've never seen anything like it."

The young man's smile widened at the genuine praise. "That's not all," he told her, when the music died down. "Wind her up again," Gaia turned the key until it couldn't be turned, and held out her palms as flat as she could make them for the little dancer to move on. To her astonishment the melody was slightly different this time, as was the mechanical dancer's choreography. Gaia gaped, looking from the dancer to Erik who was watching his little masterpiece move with a private smile of accomplishment.

"This is really wonderful, Erik. It puts everything I've ever made to shame," she mused, handing the device back to him.

"You can keep it if you'd like," Erik offered, and Gaia's eyes widened again.

"Oh I couldn't! You spent so long on it, it's really a masterpiece."

"You gave me the parts that make it work, it's as much yours as it is mine," Erik promised, and Gaia smiled. Ever so carefully she kissed the boy on the cheek of his mask and smiled.

"Thank you, Erik. I'll treasure it forever. But if I figure it out I'm selling the designs and making my fortune," she teased, and after his initial start he smiled some at her remark.

"I'm not worried. Nobody has ever figured out the secret of any of my magic."

Gaia moved to put the little dancer up on the top of her clothing cabinet, where it could have the best possible view of the room and be easily admired. "Oh really? Is there another trick you could show me?"

After a moment of consideration, Erik spoke. "There is one I've been meaning to test on an audience, if you wouldn't mind," Gaia nodded eagerly, and followed Erik downstairs to the basement. Erik moved a vase of three long-stemmed flowers to a table a foot away from a blank wall. Lighting a gas lamp and placing it at the other end of the room created a shadow of the vase and its contents on the blank wall. "I've only ever practiced this one in private, I don't really know how it looks. Please be honest."

Erik reached down into his boot and pulled out a small blade Gaia had never realized he carried. She watched him curiously as he moved past the vase to the shadow on the wall, taking the knife carefully in his hands. Ever so delicately, Erik held the blade to the shadow of a leaf on the wall, as if pinning it in place. Then with a delicate twist of the blade, the shadow of the leaf fell off the plant and out of sight… but so did the leaf in the on the flower creating the shadow. Gaia stared with her hand over her mouth, transfixed as Erik moved the knife to the shadow on the wall again repeating the action, and to her utter astonishment another leaf fell to the ground both off the shadow and off the lower itself. Erik repeated these gestures with a strange sort of mystique and reverence, ridding the flowers of their leaves and petals one by one by pruning the shadow on the wall.

Finally Erik placed the point of the knife against the final bud, and with the slightest twist of the blade the bud dropped all of its petals, slowly at first until Erik pulled the blade away and they could no longer be sustained. Gaia could only stare, awestruck by what she had seen. Erik's posture changed from one of a commanding presence to one of unease when she said nothing. "You didn't like it. What didn't you like?"

Gaia shook her head gently as she pulled her hand away from her mouth to talk. "No Erik, that's not it at all. It was absolutely beautiful. I've never seen anything like it before. How did you do that?" She asked, venturing forward to inspect the vase that now held only stems but seeing nothing out of the ordinary.

"Magic, of course," Erik told her simply, with a smile.

"You've certainly made me a believer," she told him finally, after she could see no strings or gimmick of any kind. "What are you doing here, with talent like that. You could make a fortune traveling with the Gypsies."

"I traveled with the Gypsies for longer than I would care to say and I never made a cent," Erik informed her with a considerable amount of bitterness in his voice which let Gaia know she ought to drop the subject immediately.

"Marco told me you broke his arm," she finally said, quietly. "I hear you held your own pretty well until they ganged up on you."

"Hm. They had better be thanking God I couldn't get to my knife. I could have put them all in their graves."

Gaia frowned deeply. "I'm glad you couldn't get to it. Nobody should have died just because Marco is a lying pig. Thank you, though. If I had known he was speaking about me like that I would have broken his arm myself," the ease of which Erik spoke of killing alarmed the girl, and she was eager to change the subject.

"You should have thrown the boiling water on his face when you had the chance," Erik remarked, and Gaia laughed some, sadly.

"Probably. You know, with his arm broken he won't be able to take charge of the next build. You ought to ask Papà if you can lead it," Gaia suggested. "He adores your work, you know. I overheard him bragging about you to one of his friends the other day, they may even vote you into their Lodge. If you're willing of course."

"Lodge?"

"Papà's a Freemason. It's becoming increasingly less taboo you know. Most of the better of men in Rome at least know someone who is a Freemason," upon seeing Erik's confusion, Gaia elaborated. "The Freemasons are a group of men with similar goals and beliefs. It's more secretive than just any group of men at the local bar, but it's hardly a secret society or anything. The only real taboo comes from the politics and religious debates that go on. Most Freemasons are more intelligent than your average political or religious leader, and they often have ideas that go a bit against the norm. Papà mostly likes the sense of community it offers him, especially since Mother died."

Erik was quite for a while, considering all this. "Perhaps I will talk to Master Turri about the next build. I know I would certainly do a better job than Marco did on the last one."

"I'm sure you would too," Gaia promised with a smile. "Papà picked you over Marco for a reason, after all. Come, I'll start breakfast."

Erik nodded and followed his housemate upstairs into the kitchen. If she had seen his face that day he had fought with Marco she certainly didn't show it, he mused. Had he merely dreamed of her horror that day? His head certainly had been spinning for a while after the fight had started.

Giovanni came into the kitchen not too long after the younger members of his household. Gaia served him a plate of sausage and eggs before serving Erik and plating herself. When Erik was quiet over breakfast, she nodded towards her father encouragingly. Taking a bit of a breath, Erik spoke.

"Master, I was wondering if you had decided who to place in charge of the Coppola build?"

"I haven't even begun to think about it, really. Why do you ask?" Inquired the old man, a bit of a smile playing on his lips as he realized what Erik was getting at.

"I have a design that I would like to show you, and perhaps if you like it I can present it to the family and work on the build myself," Erik suggested, and the old man patted the boy's back firmly.

"Now that is a wonderfully idea, my boy! I'd be pleased to look over your designs, I'm sure they're remarkable," Giovanni promised, eyes shining. This praise caused Erik to smile as he returned to his breakfast, glancing over at Gaia who smiled broadly and mouthed her congratulations to him silently.


	6. Chapter 6

Life became very busy for Erik once his designs were accepted by the Coppola family. He was allowed to work in the rock quarry and pick out his own stone, and was assigned a team of workers to begin the project on the site of a decrepit ancient roman building that was to be torn down. In an attempt to preserve history, Erik took some of the stone that had been used in the old building to use in the house, and preserved the stone foundation with only minor necessary repairs rather than replacing it. Giovanni was quite impressed with Erik's attachment to ancient Roman stonework and admired his ability to preserve the history of a culture that wasn't even his own. It was finally clear to the old man that Erik had adopted Italy as much as Italy had adopted him.

Without even realizing it, Erik had spent more time in Rome with the Turri family than he had in any one place since he left France. The event didn't go unnoticed by Giovanni and his daughter however, and while Erik was out in the quarry or in the work site for hours a day the pair of them planned to celebrate the day simply enough.

Father and daughter were waiting to surprise him when the sun set and it became too dark to work any longer. Erik was confused by the darkness of the house as he approached it from the outskirts of the city; normally when he arrived home at the end of the day the house seemed warm and full of life, but tonight it was completely dark. The young man tensed considerably when he saw the house, instinct telling him to expect the worst when he entered but reason telling him the father and daughter had likely just gone to visit one of Gaia's sisters for the evening and had forgot to mention their plans. Sure enough Erik was able to breathe a sigh of relief when he got to the door to find a note rolled and neatly tied with a ribbon resting in the mailbox. Its contents explained Gaia and her father had gone to dinner and wine with the physician up the street, and gave an address in case Erik should like to join them. Erik tucked the note neatly into his heavy wool coat and opened the door to slip inside out of the cold.

Moving to the fireplace, Erik revived the flames before turning and spotting Gaia and Giovanni grinning in the fresh light. "Surprise!" They announced, Gaia holding up a large glass serving dish filled with ladyfingers soaked in espresso and layers of sweet cream dusted with chocolate, creating what was undoubtedly the most indulgent looking tiramisu Erik had seen from Gaia yet. Both the master of the house and his daughter were grinning from ear to ear and Gaia bounced on her toes some in excitement.

"Oh Erik I know you don't really like attention but I just couldn't help it. You wouldn't even tell us when your birthday was so I thought we could celebrate it all today," she grinned.

"What exactly happened today?" Erik demanded, self consciously.

"My boy, today is the anniversary of the day I chased you out of the rafters and onto the ice. Come and sit, we've been slaving away all day. Gaia even goaded me into helping with supper, but she wouldn't let me touch the tiramisu though, so it's certainly safe to eat," Giovanni told the boy, embracing him firmly and guiding him to the table to partake in the massive spread of food they had laid out. Erik bit the inside of his cheeks firmly, unable to comprehend what was going on. Nobody had ever done anything like this for him before. When he was a boy his mother had been goaded into giving Erik a birthday party, consisting of a cake and a gift from one of his mother's childhood friends. When Erik had asked if he might have the gift of a pair of kisses from his mother as a gift, one for then and one to save, his mother had cried and beaten him at the very suggestion. Nothing so kind had ever been done for him since, especially for no apparent reason like this. Nobody had ever been so willing… excited even, to celebrate his arrival in their lives. He wasn't sure how to react to all this.

"I… Thank you."

"Nonsense Erik, eat!" Gaia demanded, piling food onto his plate with a grin, including a generous helping of tiramisu. While she plated his food, she whispered so only he could here. "I have a present for you, but I have to give it to you away from Papà. Can I come to your room later?"

Erik nodded and she smiled, kissing his masked cheek before standing up again. "Papà has a present for you!"

"Gaia don't spoil the surprise!" Her father scolded, but with a smile. Erik raised a brow under the mask, and Giovanni pressed a small metallic object in Erik's hand. The boy inspected what he discovered to be a gold ring, its face engraved with a square and compass crossing one another, encasing a gothically carved letter G. A sturdy gold chain was linked through the ring, and Erik looked up at Giovanni curiously. He didn't have to wait long for an explanation. "This is the ring my father gave to me when I was invited into the brotherhood that has immensely enriched my life. I know that whatever happens to me, my Brothers will be there through thick and thin, and that should I need it I and my family will have a place to live and foot to eat anywhere we see that symbol," Giovanni informed him, pointing to the symbol on the ring. "I want to offer the luxury to you, Erik. I know you are a traveling man, and I don't expect for you to stay with us forever. But I would feel more at ease knowing you will always have Brothers to take care of you in your hour of need."

Erik studied the ring for a long moment, wondering if being a part of such an organization could really have such power. Would strangers really allow him into their homes just because he wore their symbol? He wasn't sure how he felt about dedicating himself to any society, but from what he could tell there seemed to be no downsides. "Thank you, Master. I can't think of a better gift," Giovanni smiled and squeezed the boy's shoulder fondly.

"My boy… it would be a great honor to me if you would consider me a father as much as I consider you a son," it was true, Erik was the closest thing the old man had ever had to a son. The masked boy was quiet for a long while, so long Giovanni began to suspect he had perhaps offended the boy. It wasn't until Erik's shoulders began to quake ever so slightly and the boy moved from his chair to embrace the master mason tightly Giovanni knew his sentiments were returned. Gaia smiled as she watched them, tender tears in her eyes. She knew how badly her father had wanted a son, and she couldn't even begin to guess what Erik's life had been like before he came except that his parents must not have been as kind and wonderful as her father. She was immensely glad they had found one another, and was deeply moved by Erik's unexpected display of affection.

After dinner and dessert, Gaia left Giovanni and Erik to talk and drink by the fire. Once their talk died down and she heard her father retire to his room, Gaia crept downstairs with a package neatly wrapped in paper and tied with bold blue ribbon. She knocked at his door gently, and smiled when he opened it.

"Gaia! I'm sorry, I didn't expect you to come," Erik explained, and Gaia giggled some.

"Erik are you dunk?"

The masked boy puffed out his chest some, defensively. "So what if I am? I'm old enough to drink."

"Calm yourself, I'm not accusing you of anything horrible," She teased. "I'll just leave this with you then," Gaia smiled and offered him the package.

Erik took it gingerly. "You didn't have to…"

"I wanted to. Papà and I are glad you're here. I'm glad you're here," she added, with a private smile. "Well, are you going to open it or what?"

Moving to sit on the bed, Erik delicately untied the ribbon and pulled apart the wrapping without tearing it in the least. Gaia sat next to him and watched him, amused; she had never seen anybody open a gift so carefully in her life. Gingerly Erik pulled a small glass box from the wrapping, held together at the seams with elaborately designed gold that moved down into matching gold feet. Inside the box was anchored an intricate mechanical device leading to a key at the bottom of the box.

"Go on, wind it up," Gaia urged, and Erik obeyed. He turned the box over carefully so as not to disturb its delicate innards, and smiled as the prelude of Bach's Prelude in C Major. He listened in wonder as the tiny sound hit every note of the flowing melody perfectly, capturing every emotion in spite of its minuteness. When the music box lost its momentum and needed to be rewound, Erik simply inspected it with an artfully appreciative eye.

"It's wonderful. Is all your work like this?"

Gaia shook her head. "No, not really. I usually use wooden boxes. They last longer and sell a little better. But after I saw your little dancer I knew you would appreciate something like this more."

"The melody is one of my favorites."

The girl smiled. "Mine too. There's a street musician here, who plays cello and violin for change. I used to sit and listen to him play Bach's cello suite for hours and hours… I never had such an ear for music, though."

"I think you must!" Erik exclaimed, more enthusiastically than he had meant. "This… this was perfect. Not a single note was off," Erik praised and Gaia chuckled.

"I'm sure there was at least one. Drink some water before you go to sleep, you'll thank me in the morning," she promised, and Erik signed in resignation. He put the music box on a table by his bedside where sat two flowers no unlike the ones from the trick he had done for her with the shadows. Gaia turned down the sheets for him, and pulled off the boy's shoes. She smiled at him and moved to take his mask off to put it on the bedside table when Erik grabbed her wrist sharply. "Ow! Erik let me go this instant!" She demanded, ripping her wrist free and glaring down at me.

"I'm sorry!" Erik yelped, not having realized his own strength. "But you shouldn't have touched my mask…"

Without a word Gaia stalked out of the room, and Erik looked after her with a deep frown and hoped he hadn't hurt her too badly. He didn't realize Gaia's pride had been injured more than her wrist.


	7. Chapter 7

When she started avoiding him, Erik was worried he had seriously injured Gaia. He felt horrible for ever having touched her, especially when he hadn't been of sound mind. When one morning Gaia woke to find the glass music box she had made for him outside her door, she finally broke the wall she had put up between them and ventured down in the basement warily. She knocked at the door, and frowned when there was no answer.

"Erik? It's me. Please open up," after a moment she could hear movement from inside the room and finally the door opened just a crack but didn't say anything. It was always hard to tell where his deep-set eyes were looking but Gaia could tell they were glued to the floor. "What was this doing outside my room? I could have stepped on it."

"I thought you might want it back."

"Why would I want it back? I made it for you. Here, take it," Gaia, slipped it through the door to the boy, who accepted it warily.

"You're upset with me."

Gaia folded her arms some and nodded. "Yes, I am. But that doesn't mean I want the music box back. It was a gift, it's yours to keep."

"I didn't mean to hurt you," Erik told her quietly, and Gaia frowned.

"I know you didn't, Erik. But you did. You broke Marco's arm and if you had wanted to you could have broken mine too. All I tried to do was take off your mask so you would be comfortable…"

"That's exactly it, Gaia. Nobody touches my face."

"But Erik-"

"But nothing, Gaia. It's just… you wouldn't understand."

The girl frowned some. "Maybe if you would tell me I could try."

Erik shook his head, but opened the door all the way to let her inside. "You could never understand. You are as beautiful as I am ugly," Gaia's frown deepened at that.

"Then why is it I get the feeling this is about more than just how you look?" She asked quietly. "I've been watching you for a long time, Erik. You're incredibly talented, and passionate. Everything you touch turns to gold if you want it to, but… I saw that night you can cause as much destruction as you can beauty. That power doesn't come from vanity."

Erik looked down at the ground as he moved to sit in the chair by his working desk, considering what she said but not speaking. It was Gaia who broke the silence. "Why did you leave France? And how did you come to Rome?"

"…I left France for the sake of my mother. She was in love with a doctor, who hated me. A group of boys started tormenting us. When they attacked me and killed our dog, I overheard the doctor telling her I needed to be locked away, for my good and for hers. I knew in spite of the fact he was more concerned for her good than he was for me, he was right. She would never be safe while I stayed, so I ran. I didn't get far before I was picked up by Gypsies," he explained, quietly. Gaia sat, listening intently.

"Picked up?"

"Kidnapped is more like it, I suppose. If someone with no place to go can be kidnapped."

The girl frowned deeply. "That's why you never made a cent. They forced you to perform."

Erik nodded, quietly. "I eventually won a little freedom, because I made the proprietor so much money. At least I thought that was why at the time, I'm not so sure anymore. He had… something of a fetish for the freaks in his show," Gaia's eyes widened immensely and she covered her mouth with her hand.

"I can't even… Oh God, Erik, I'm so sorry."

The boy shook his head. "God had nothing to do with it. There was no God in that place." He said simply. "At any rate, his perversion allowed me the opportunity to leave. He… attacked me, one night. Or tried to anyway; I ran him through before he could touch me, with his own blade," Erik removed the blade he kept in his boot and handed it to her. Upon inspecting it, Gaia could tell it was Romanian in origin from its homely but practical leather strap around the handle. It was certainly the sort of knife a Gypsy would own. Her heart sank when she looked closer and saw flecks of brown at the hilt of the blade that she realized must have been dried blood.

"Erik how many times have you used this blade?"

"Only on Javert," Erik promised quickly, taking the knife back and tucking it into his boot. "That was just west of Venice. I moved due south from there, where your Father found me."

"No wonder you ran from him," Gaia told him with a frown. "I'm surprised you stayed with us at all."

"After eight years of hell, his kindness was… refreshing. Strange, but not unwelcome," Gaia nodded her understanding and bit her lip some.

"Thank you for telling me this, Erik. It couldn't have been easy. That couldn't have been more than two years ago…" Erik nodded without saying anything, and Gaia continued. "I don't how that relates to what happened when I tried to take your mask, though," she frowned.

Erik frowned as well. "You saw my face, didn't you?" Gaia nodded. "How would you describe it?"

After a long moment of consideration, Gaia finally spoke. "After my mother died, it rained for days. Papà decided to exhume the body to rebury it in a mausoleum... the men dropped the casket, and it opened. Your face looked likes hers did, after weeks of death had sunk in."

"That seems to be the common thought," Erik explained. "That my face is the face of death. For years I was forced to remove my mask and was marketed as death itself. The gypsies did everything they could to keep my face exposed for a paying audience. I can't… handle people looking at me, not like that. Not anymore."

"I've already seen your face, Erik, and I never intended to get some sort of… sick thrill out of it," Gaia frowned. "I will admit… I was terrified when I first saw it. But it can't scare me any more than it already has, and I know that it doesn't define you. Do you think Papà would have taken you in like a son if it did? We both know that isn't who you are… but Erik, do you?"

Erik frowned thoughtfully, considering Gaia's words carefully. As he did, Gaia stood and moved to place a kiss his masked cheek. "You don't have anything more to fear from us than we do from you. And the sooner you realize that the better off we'll all be. Life is too short for misery."

"The pot calls the kettle black," The masked boy accused, quiet. "You may have your father fooled, Gaia… but not me. Nobody saves a fortune to move far far away if they are happy where they are, or as who they are. You might love your father, but I see your resentment for him, and for your sisters who pinned him on you."

Gaia could only stare, dumbstruck as Erik stood. "You don't have to stay anymore, Gaia. I release you from your duties. I can care for your father from now on."

This news caused Gaia to gape. "What are you talking about?"

"Your father has taken me on as a son, you said so yourself. I am older than you, surely. That puts his well being in my hands. You're free to go," the authority in Erik's voice startled the girl, who couldn't find words to speak. He was right. He was likely older than she was, even if barely. That combined with him being the only male and unwed put the responsibility of Giovanni on his shoulders. But Gaia knew things were not so simple.

"I can't leave him, Erik."

"Why not? Would you like me to throw you out to ease your guilt?"

"It isn't that, Erik… He needs me, as much as he needed a son. You couldn't cook for him, or clean the house, things he can't do for himself anymore since Mama died. You're too busy at the site to even learn. And even if you could, it just… wouldn't be the same. You never knew my mother. He's never even spoken to you about her, has he?"

"No, he hasn't," Erik admitted, and Gaia nodded.

"It isn't something he can share easily. He only talks about her with me, and only when I ask. I barely remember her… I may hate it here, Erik, but it isn't because of my father and I'm not ready to leave him alone. It isn't his fault I was never meant for the city."

"What is not to like, then? Rome is stunning. A work of art."

"To an architect. To me… to me it's little more than rock. The people are maddeningly shallow and dull everywhere I turn, and the memory of my mother haunts this house. Everywhere I turn I see her, and how wonderful she was… and I hate being constantly faced with the reality that I will never, ever be like her. She was the perfect wife and mother until she got sick and I just… I don't know. I'll be eighteen years old in the spring, plenty old enough to marry but with no prospects. Everywhere I turn I feel like I'm letting my mother down," Gaia frowned deeply, sitting back down on the bed. "I can't help but feel that if I leave the city, there won't be anyone left to know what a failure I am."

"You have plenty of prospects. Marco would have you as his bride in a heartbeat."

Gaia laughed some, glibly. "He would have me but I would sooner die than have him. He is more of a pig than most, you saw that for yourself."

Erik considered his words for a long while before staying. "Marry me then. I would give you all the freedom you require and more, and you wouldn't have to feel like you let your mother down." This thought caused Gaia to smile sweetly as she considered the idea. After a long moment, she moved to kiss Erik's cheek and hugged him tightly.

"You aren't ready for a wife any more than I am ready for a husband," she told him quietly. "But I will certainly keep the prospect in mind, and it does set my mind at ease. You are a wonderful friend, Erik, and I thank you."

The masked boy nodded and smiled quietly. The proposal had been very spur of the moment, but for some reason the idea she would consider it made immensely happy. He had always thought Gaia was surely the most beautiful woman in Italy, but he had never before thought about her romantically, not seriously anyway. In his dreams he had considered what it might be like to hold her and kiss her, but never as more than a flight of fancy. She was surely the most remarkable woman in the world if she could turn down the hand of a handsome man like Marco but consider the proposal of a monster like him.

Her voice broke him from his train of thought. "Come upstairs and have some tea. It's going to rain today, you'll need all the warmth you can get."


	8. Chapter 8

Late one night it dawned on Erik that in the past, not long after he had met Gaia, they had spoken before about her desire not to marry. According to her, she wished to marry but only out of love. Yet, she had agreed to consider Erik's proposal for the future when she had immediately turned down the proposal of so many men.

Erik went immediately from happy and proud of himself to uneasy and curious. The only good explanation Erik could think of was that she had been too afraid of him to simply say no, a thought that made him furious. After all of her talk that he was not his face, she was still terrified of him! All of her talk had been nothing more than lies, sweet words to try and appease him. But could he really blame her? He had been rough with her the night she tried to remove his mask, and the thought in Italy was that alcohol merely amplifies your true nature. Loving people are aroused, sad people become depressed… Erik must therefore have been naturally violent and angry. He supposed it wasn't far from the truth, considering his past. Telling her of the murder he had committed had been a mistake!

Another explanation Erik considered was that she had decided to lower her standards after all. Gaia had mentioned before that she thought her standard of love was too high; well perhaps in the light of her worries of disappointing her family, she had decided to drop that standard to one of friendship and comradery. Maybe simply being able to tolerate him would be enough for her to marry him someday. This thought didn't infuriate him so much as it wounded his heart. This was his own fault, he knew; dwelling on what it would be like to be married to Gaia had made his feelings for her more complex than they had ever been. In his fantasies she was everything he knew her to be: stubborn, full of life, passionate, private... but she was also things Erik saw in her more secretly. She was a passionate lover in his dreams, a wonderful mother and wife, private against the world but confiding in him all of her secrets and dreams, things he had only caught a glimpse of since meeting her. Since proposing to her he wanted little more than to be her closest friend and confidant, and to learn as much about her as he could.

These fantasies of their married life together left Erik clinging to one last explanation for Gaia's reaction to his proposal. Maybe, just maybe, Gaia loved him. The thought had started out like a seed in his mind, tiny and fragile. Slowly it grew, fueled by his fantasies and his quiet observation of her as time passed. There were times he dared not think about it for fear of going mad with curiosity, but somehow the vines of this idea wrapped their way into his consciousness even when they were most unwelcome. Erik occasionally found himself daydreaming about the idea at the quarry, a mistake that nearly decapitated him more than once as his mind was anywhere but on the rocks moving just above his head. When Gaia would meet him at the work site to walk with him home for lunch, he could no longer turn a deaf ear to the catcalls and often crude comments of the men in the site.

It reminded him so much of a fairytale he had grown up reading. _La Belle et la Bête. _The Beauty and the Beast. It was a traditional French story that was without a doubt centuries old, but was first written and published by a remarkable woman author nearly a century before Erik was even born. The copy in his mother's library had been perhaps half that old, but immensely valuable nevertheless, and it had captivated him from the moment he read it. _La Belle et la Bête _told the story of a merchant and his youngest daughter, who had been so beautiful she was given the name Belle. One night the merchant became lost in a thick forest, and sought refuge in a castle. Inside the castle he found a beautiful rose, one he desired to give as a gift to his daughter for her patience while he had been away. This did not bode well with the beast, who had been watching the merchant from afar. Because the merchant had abused the Beast's hospitality and attempted to take his most valuable possession, the merchant must stay in the castle forever as a prisoner. The merchant explains that the rose was a gift for his daughter and that he meant no harm, but the Beast will only set him free upon striking a bargain; he would trade the merchant for the man's youngest daughter. The merchant returns home and the girl goes willingly, glad to trade her life for that of her beloved father. Upon realizing the girl's beauty, the Beast treats her as his guest rather than as a prisoner, and his kindness eventually wins over the girl's affections.

Every night the Beast asks her to marry him, and every night the girl refuses. In her dreams she is approached by a handsome prince, who begs to know why she is refusing his proposal. She sees no connection between the prince and the Beast, and can only answer that she loves the Beast only as a friend. It is not until she leaves the Beast to visit her family out of homesickness and discovers he is dying of heartbreak at her absence that she discovers she truly loves him. When her tears transform him into the handsome prince from her dreams, she finally agrees to marry the Beast, and like many fairy tales they live happily ever after.

Erik could not help but sense perhaps this story was more true than its creators could have originally known, at least to some extent. No matter how much he wished to be loved… he was still a hideous Beast. What woman could love a Beast as more than just a friend, a pet to pity and dote upon? No illusion he knew would ever turn Erik into a handsome prince fit to marry a beauty like Gaia. There simply was no magic like the magic told of in fairy tales.

But the dreams would not stop. Belle dreamed every night of her handsome prince, and Erik dreamed every night of his beautiful princess. Every night seemed to last decades, each and every moment of their lives together playing out in his mind, so realistically he was loathe to wake every morning to the dreariness of real life. Each night the dream was different, and tonight's dream had a strange feel to it… something was wrong. There was a great sense of unease lingering throughout the dream, in spite of the imaginary couple's happiness. The disturbance was so great it caused Erik to wake well before his usual hour. It was mere moments after Erik woke that he heard movement from upstairs and the cluttering of something hard hitting the floor.

Bolting up the stairs, Erik froze outside Gaia's door, listening intently when suddenly there was a loud crack and a muffled yelp from inside. Reaching for the handle Erik's heart sank when he found it locked. He reached desperately on top of the door frame, praying more earnestly than he had since he was a boy to find a spare key. To his immense fortune his hand fell upon the metallic key and in moments the door was open.

The sight that greeted him sent him into a rage far worse even than he had entered in during his fight with Marco. The same man was in the room struggling with a nearly naked Gaia, most of her thin summer nightgown having been torn off in her struggle. She was gagged with the man's shirt, and he had somehow managed to bind her hands with a leather belt. Gaia kicked at Marco ferociously, pausing only to acknowledge her savior's presence by exclaiming his name through her gag. Her relief upon seeing him vanished the instant he attacked Marco with the fury of a wild animal. While his eyes were harder to find in the shadows than even in the day, she knew the moment she saw them there was a lust for blood in his heart.

The men struggled on the bed, and Gaia yelp when Marco was nearly shoved down onto her. Using what little momentum she could gain from her still free legs, she moved out of bed to watch the fight unfold in terror. Marco was drunk and unsteady on his feet, but he fought as if for his life against Erik, as if knowing by instinct the masked man would not stop until blood was spilled. With all her might Gaia tried to reach her gag but was unable to free her hands to do so, rendering her completely incapable of calling Erik down from his madness. In a whirlwind of movement, Erik smashed a vase into shards against a wall, wielding a hefty piece in absence of his knife. The masked man grabbed the Italian by the throat, and dragged the struggling man to one of the windows Gaia had left open earlier to let in a breeze, and unbeknownst to Erik the very same window Marco had slipped in through.

Erik held the shard of glass firmly against the man's gut as he pushed the man back out the window, suspending him only by the throat. "Do you still not know who I am, Signore?" Erik demanded in a low whisper, throwing his voice directly to the man's ear without even opening his mouth. The man gaped in horror and fumbled in his pocket, a gesture Erik was too maddened to notice. "I am the Angel of Death, the Collector of Souls… and your time has come," Erik hissed, punctuating his last remark with a sharp stab to the man's gut. This movement was followed by a bang so loud Gaia yelped under her gag, a sound which developed into a scream as Marco was catapulted over the ledge of the high second story window onto the street below, and Erik fell backwards clutching his shoulder with one hand while the other hung limp and useless at his side.

Giovanni came into the room as fast as his legs could carry him, eyes widening in shock and horror. The old man moved first to his daughter, who even bound and gagged was hurrying to Erik's side in an attempt to help him. Giovanni tore the gag off Gaia who immediately called out for Erik, who now leaning against a wall, faint from pain and blood loss. As soon as Gaia's hands were unbound she cupped her savior's face and kissed him soundly. "You're going to be okay, Erik, I'll go fetch the doctor right now," she promised, standing and moving past her father to pull on her robe and head towards the door.

"Gaia, what happened here?" The old man demanded, kneeling to inspect his adopted son.

"Look out the window Papà, and you'll see," Gaia promised as she all but ran out the bedroom door, breaking into a full sprint as soon as her feet touched the cobblestone outside. Giovanni did as he was told, standing to look down out the window in horror of the sight that greeted him there; Marco's body was twisted at an unnatural angle, back surely broken from the fall. If his neck had not snapped as well, Giovanni was certain the boy would die from the bloody wound in his gut, though the old man felt little remorse; it was a better fate than he deserved for the crime he had intended to commit.


	9. Chapter 9

Erik was given enough morphine to put him to sleep for the rest of the night and well into the next day. Gaia was loathe to leave his side for even a moment while he slept, even though the physician had promised the wound wouldn't be deadly as long as it was kept clean. The bullet had gone clean through Erik's shoulder, a grace since the bullet did not have to be dug out risking infection, but a curse since bullets had a way of causing more damage when leaving the body than when entering in cases like this. The boy would live, but whether or not he would retain the use of his arm once it healed. The doctor stayed until Erik woke late in the afternoon, speaking mostly with Giovanni in quiet whispers down it in the dining room while Gaia watched over Erik in his sleep.

This was a delicate situation. There was no doubt in anybody's mind that Erik had saved Gaia from a horrible act, but there was also no doubt Erik reacted to a great extreme. His face and the mask he wore already made him an unpopular figure among many people in Rome, and rumor followed him wherever he went. It wouldn't be long before whispers of murder began and the story was twisted into something hideous and unrecognizable.

"Gaia, would you please explain to me what happened one more time?" The doctor asked, and Giovanni nodded to Gaia that it was okay to tell him. The girl took a breath, and squeezed Erik's hand while he slept.

"I went to bed not long after sundown, but it was too warm to sleep. I opened the windows to let in a breeze, and fell right asleep… The next thing I know, Marcos was standing over me with his shirt off. Before I could scream he shoved his shirt in my mouth and tied the sleeves around my head. I kicked and scratched at him as hard as I could. I even got a hold of a flower vase and tried to throw it at him, but I missed and it hit the floor. He somehow turned me over onto my stomach, and he tied my hands with his belt behind my back. I kept trying to scream but I couldn't get to the gag to take it off. I turned over to kick at Marco. I had just got him good in the shin when I saw Erik come in. He got on top of Marco on the bed and they started struggling. Marco was so drunk I'm sure he couldn't have felt a single blow Erik landed. Erik finally wretched him off the bed and fought him on the floor until he got ahold of the vase that I threw and broke it against the wall. Normally Erik keeps a knife in his boot for protection but he wasn't wearing his boots… so he took up a shard of ceramic from the vase and wielded it like a blade. He got ahold of Marco by the neck, and dragged him to the open window. He pushed Marco awfully far back out the window, and Marco got this terrified look on his face. The rest happened so fast… I really don't know if Marco fired at Erik first or if Erik stabbed him. Either way, Marco fell out the window when Erik fell back. Right after the gun fired is when Papa came in and untied me, and then I went to get you, Signore." Gaia explained, wiping at her eyes. "Please Signore, you can't think poorly of Erik. If Marco had a gun think of what he might have done… he's been harassing me for over a year, and he's hated Erik since that fight where his arm was broken."

The physician rubbed Gaia's back comfortingly. "I'm going to do everything I can to keep Erik's name clear, you have my word." The man promised, and Gaia nodded quietly. He turned to the old man at the back of the room and spoke to him. "Giovanni, it is my professional opinion that your son was shot before he stabbed Marco, and that the boy died from the fall and not from the stab wound. The boy is a hero, and I won't stand anyone saying otherwise," the doctor told his old friend firmly, and Giovanni embraced the man tightly.

"Thank you, Sergio. I appreciate all your help. You'll come and check on him tomorrow?"

"Of course I will. Get some rest, both of you," with that the physician left the house to return to his practice.

Gaia finally pried herself from Erik's side to prepare lunch for her and he father. She was mid way through her cooking when her heard footsteps coming down the stairs. Moving from the kitchen, she smiled at the sight of Giovanni helping his son down the stairs. As soon as Erik was at the bottom of the stairs she embraced him tightly, letting go immediately when she heard him wince and felt his body tense.

"Oh! I'm so sorry Erik I didn't think-"

"It's fine," the boy promised, forcing a smile through his pain. "Are you okay? He didn't hurt you did he?"

The young woman shook her head, brown eyes tearing up some. "No, no he didn't. You came just in time," Gaia promised, taking over for her father to help Erik into the kitchen. It was clear his head was still foggy from the morphine, but Erik had always been stubborn and was clearly determined not to sit around in bed for any longer than he had to.

Gaia plated him with a generous helping of pasta with fresh clams and a large helping of white wine. "If there's anything else I can get you?"

"No this looks wonderful," Erik promised with a painful smile, though between the morphine and the pain he didn't have much of an appetite. Gaia kept his water and wine glass full as he picked at his food, but she was worried about his concerned quiet. "Erik what's wrong?"

"Have you decided what's going to happen to me?" He asked them quietly, and Gaia frowned looking to her father.

"You haven't committed any crimes," Giovanni told Erik simply. "You don't have anything to be worried about."

"But I-"

"But nothing, Erik. It is the official word of the physician that you did not kill Marco Lupis, and that you stabbed him in self defense and in defense of my daughter's virtue," this elicited a frown from Erik, but the boy nodded his understanding but the concern did not leave his face.

Sitting next to him, Gaia rested her head gently on Erik's bad shoulder. "It's going to be okay, Erik. You quite possibly saved my life, and at the very least you saved me from something that might have changed me forever. I am forever in your debt, Erik."

"I had to do it," he told her quietly. "I couldn't stand to think of what might have happened…"

Gaia hushed him gently. "I know, Erik. And I thank you from the bottom of my heart," she smiled. "Which reminds me… Papà, Erika and I have news for you."

Erik looked to her, confused. Giovanni's expression mimicked the one Erik hid under his mask. "Well, what news is this?" The old man asked curiously, and the young woman smiled some to Erik.

"A few weeks ago, Erik proposed to me. I've decided to accept," Gaia could not remember ever seeing her father so happy and excited in her entire life. The old man moved to them both, pulling them up from their chairs and embracing them tightly. Erik laughed through his pain, a sound Gaia wasn't sure she had ever heard from him before.

"You will, you'll marry me?" The young man asked with the eagerness of a child.

"I would be honored to marry you, Erik," Gaia smiled to him, pecking his lips gently. "You've been nothing but wonderful to me and my family from the moment you came into this house, I would be a damned fool to not call you my husband."

Giovanni embraced his children tightly. "My son is to be my son after all! What wonderful, wonderful news! I'll begin making arrangements immediately. Oh Gaia, if only your mother were here. She would be so, so happy for you both."

Gaia kissed her father's cheek. "She's here somewhere, Papà, even if we can't see her," the old man nodded his agreement, and embraced the pair again.

"I couldn't be happier! Let's open another bottle of wine and celebrate!" The old man announced cheerfully, and Gaia pulled herself away to get another bottle of wine from the kitchen, and returned to find Erik and her father sitting, Erik rubbing his arm absently in its sling while Giovanni sang the boy's praises. "You are by far the best of my daughters' husbands," the old man announced. "You really should meet some of the half wits my children have picked, all beauty and no brains just like they are. But Gaia has always been different. You're going to have your hands full my boy."

The young woman smacked her father's arm gently. "I'm not so bad!"

"Not bad, simply stubborn as a mule," Giovanni teased, gently. "But a doting daughter and a wonderful cook, with a heart of gold no less," he promised, and Gaia smiled. "You two will be immensely happy together."


	10. Chapter 10

In the weeks leading up to the wedding, Erik had been hard at work preparing a gift for his bride to celebrate the occasion. He worked in secret as he so often did, giving Gaia no reason to suspect him of anything abnormal. Working in the dead of night, Erik drew up plans for a house on the land he had bought with his earnings from the project. The house worked well into the landscape, as natural as a house could be. Surrounding it was a vineyard, and off at the end of the vineyard a decrepit old winery that could be turned into a little bed and breakfast like she had mentioned maybe one day running. The land was a mess but wouldn't take much work to turn into a charming country home for the young couple. Erik's only real concern was that it was a bit rural for his newfound occupation, and he hoped she wouldn't mind him traveling too much.

It was while Erik was working on his final sketches he heard his fiancé call out to him in a panic from upstairs. In a heartbeat Erik was up, fearing the worst; had one of Marco's friends come to finish the job? Perhaps he hadn't really killed Marco after all, and he had returned to do it himself? Erik entered Gaia's room without knocking, and was surprised to find her sitting up in bed clutching her sheets with fright, but very much alone. She was crying quietly, a sight Erik was certain he had never seen out of the girl who usually carefully hid her emotions.

"Gaia what's wrong?"

"It was only a nightmare… I'm so sorry Erik, I didn't mean to wake you," she whispered, clearly embarrassed by her display but still clinging to the sheets with white knuckles.

"It's all right. Are you sure everything is okay?" He asked again, and she nodded quietly. The masked man left reluctantly back to the basement, unsure of how to handle a situation like this; he had had plenty of nightmares in his lifetime, and he knew how terrifying they could be, but she insisted on being left alone. What else could he do?

Erik had only been back in the basement for a few minutes when he heard the door softly open and click closed again. He turned to look and frowned some to see Gaia standing there, holding her warmest robe tight around her in spite of the fact it was a comfortable autumn thus far. Before he could ask her what she needed, she spoke. "Is it okay if I sleep down here with you?" Her voice was quiet and shy, and clearly she knew it was an inappropriate question… but her tone held a considerable amount of fear in it still, so much so that Erik couldn't possibly refuse.

"Of course," he told her, and moved to turn down the sheets. Once she had climbed into bed he blew out the lantern and moved to the more comfortable chair than the one at his work desk to spend the night.

Gaia frowned. "What are you doing?"

"Going to sleep," Erik answered, unsure of why she had asked at all.

"You're not going to sleep with me?" This caught Erik quite off guard. In a few days they were going to be married and would sleep together ever night in a much more intimate sense, but the thought of being in bed with a woman was still so foreign to Erik. Everything was happening so quickly he hadn't had time to process the enormity of what was going on until that simple request by his fiancé to join his in bed. With considerable hesitation, Erik moved from the lounge chair to the bed, kicking off his shoes and sliding beneath the sheets.

Immediately Gaia's soft, warm frame pressed up against his, seeking all the comfort she could from his bonier form. After a long while, Erik could finally feel her begin to relax against him. Timidly he draped an arm around her to hold her in turn. Almost as if by instinct, Gaia cradled further into him as he did so.

"Gaia, what was your nightmare about?" He finally ventured, curiosity winning over his timidity at her closeness.

She was quiet for so long Erik had begun to think she fell asleep. "It was about that night you saved me," that was the only way Gaia could stomach referring to what had almost happened the night Marco came through the window. "Only this time instead of saving me Marco shot you dead and he… he…" Her shoulders shook in a way that suggested she had begun to cry again. "He couldn't ever have killed you, could he have? Please say you're never going to die."

Her voice was so very nearly a beg it brought Erik to tears. Never in his life had he met someone not only so appreciative for him to come into their life, but so hurt by the idea of his death. Erik pulled her tighter against him, and she held him just as fast. "He couldn't have killed me, Gaia," he told her confidently before continuing. "I can't promise I will never die. Everybody dies. But I can promise to do everything I can not to die before my time," he added, realizing the news that everybody dies might not help her current state. Erik looked down at her and was relieved to feel her nod against his chest.

There was a long period of quiet, though Erik guessed his fiancé was not sleeping. Her breathing was still irregular, and she sniffled every so often now that her tears had subsided. "I'm sorry, Erik. I really am. I don't know what came over me, I'm not usually like this…"

"Gaia, it's all right. It's been a stressful few weeks, it's taken its toll one everyone," he promised in an attempt to relieve her embarrassment, which she effectively managed on her own by changing the subject.

"What was it you were working on when I came in? Another magic trick?"

"Ah, not exactly…"

"What then?" She demanded curiously, looking up at him with equal interest. Erik sighed some and found himself unable to lie to her, not when she was so close and when she had been so upset just a while before. It didn't seem right.

"Your wedding present," Erik admitted, nearly laughing at the girlish smile that came over her face as she pulled away from his embrace only to better talk to him.

"Is it really?"

"Yes. But you can't see it until after the wedding"

To that Gaia pouted her best pout. This had little effect on her fiancé, much to her surprise. She didn't use it often, but whenever she had used it on her father she had always gotten exactly what it was she was after. All Erik did was chuckle and pull her against him again. "Well what if I tell you what I got you?" She offered. This bribe worked much better than her secret-weapon pout, as Gaia could see the intent curiosity develop on the portion of Erik's face she could see. After months of studying him mostly without his knowledge, she had become something of an expert on his mannerisms even though the bulk of his face was covered.

"What did you get me?" He asked curiously, and Gaia grinned.

"Uh uh, got you now! You tell me then I'll tell you," she promised, and Erik puffed his chest some.

"How do I know you'll tell me? I'll bet you haven't gotten me anything at all," Erik accused, and this time Gaia's pout worked when combined with a half hearted smack to Erik's shoulder.

"I did so! I bought it yesterday, one of Papà's friends is keeping it for me until the wedding. Why would I lie to you?" She added, and grinned as she saw Erik's will begin to bend to a curiosity as childish as her own. "Tell me!"

"Well I can't tell you very well, but I'll show you," he finally agreed, moving out of bed to light a lamp and bring over the drawings to her, as well as the deed of purchase for the land. Gaia sat up and took them, dumbstruck. She flipped through the pages so quietly Erik was terrified there was something she didn't like about them. "Well, what do you think? It's a few miles outside side of Modena and Bologna." He explained, pointing the location on a map he had included of northern Italy. "Right there."

When Gaia finally looked up at him he saw tears in her eyes again, before she looked back down at the papers in her hands. "…You bought lands and are going to build a house… all for me?" When Erik nodded quietly, she laughed some through her tears, still not quite able to wrap her head around the enormity of it. "Oh my God… and all I got you was a stupid piano," she mused with an ironic laugh.

"The gift of music isn't stupid," Erik promised. "And if you return it I will never forgive you. I haven't had a piano since I was a boy, it's a wonderful present."

"Erik, this is the most incredible, thoughtful gift I've ever been given. I can't believe you remembered let alone… I won't ever be able to repay you for a gift like this," she rambled until Erik silenced her by taking away the papers which she stared after in awe.

"Lie down and go to sleep. And at least try and act surprised on our wedding day, won't you?" He teased, and Gaia laughed, wiping at her eyes as she lay back down. She curled against her fiancé again when he joined her, holding her more comfortably than he had before. It was then that she decided she would throw caution to the wind and spend every night in his arms even before the wedding, no matter who might catch them or what they might think.


	11. Chapter 11

Gaia began to sneak down to sleep with Erik more and more frequently, although she was always gone in the morning when Erik woke. Erik understood why this was necessary, but it still made him sad to fall asleep to her warm touch and wake up cold and alone in bed. Well, not entirely alone; Gaia always left a note on her pillow wishing him a good morning and promising him tea upstairs.

After many months, Erik was finally regaining the use of his arm. He knew it would never be as good as it once was and already it was starting to ache as the weather cooled, but it was a significant relief he could use it at all considering the alternative meant the abrupt end of his career. Even though he could work again, the build was kept on hiatus in preparation for the wedding that was drawing ever closer. After months of preparation, the day had finally arrived. Gaia was fitted into her mother's gown and Erik was talked into buying a tailored suit rather than a simple working vest and shirt which he was prone to wearing. It had taken some convincing, but once the suit was purchased Erik found he rather liked how it looked; for some reason a suit made the mask seem less obvious, he felt, whereas when he dressed like the average Italian working man the mask seemed to draw a considerable amount of attention.

Erik was adjusting his tie and getting ready to go to the roof where the ceremony was being held when he saw the reflection of Gaia slip into the room in full wedding garb. She looked the image of an angel, dressed in white silk, except for her sleeves and the back of the gown which were made of an intricate lace. Of all the beauty he had seen in Italy, he was relatively certain Gaia was the most beautiful sight to be had. "Isn't it bad luck for the groom to see the bride before the wedding?" He teased some, though he was glad she had come down; he was growing nervous as the minutes ticked down and the guests began arriving. It was a small affair, only Gaia's family and a few of the local Freemasons Erik was to join the following new year who were eager to share in the event if only to learn more about Erik.

"It is, but I just couldn't wait to see you," Gaia smiled. "What do you think?" She asked, turning around with her arms out for him to inspect.

"I think God will be livid with me for taking his most beautiful angel as my bride," Erik promised with a smile, and Gaia grinned.

"Oh I'm so glad you like it. I was afraid it would be a little old fashioned, but my mother always had exquisite taste. You look wonderful yourself. I'll have to give myself a pat on the back for filling you out, once I can reach my back without ripping anything."

Erik laughed. "With your cooking I'll wind up a portly old man before I'm forty," he teased, and Gaia rolled her eyes playfully.

"If you get fat on me I'll get fat on you right back," she threatened emptily.

"You could be larger than any elephant in India and I wouldn't love you any less," he promised, not realizing what he had admitted until Gaia's eyes widened.

"You love me?" She ventured timidly, and Erik gaped for a moment trying to find his words.

"I… Yes. I love you," he admitted quietly, eyes on the floor. "But I understand the marriage is one of convenience, I swear on my life I won't hold you to any of the standard conventions. We'll simply be strange housemates."

With a small smile, Gaia moved up to Erik and took his hands, pecking his lips gently. "I love you too. I will be proud to be your wife in every sense of the term, and I will be very, very cross with you if we're only 'strange housemates'," she told him, still smiling. Erik wasn't quite sure how to respond. Even though he had dreamed of her love and debated in his mind for ages on why she would have possibly accepted his proposal, it still seemed like such a foreign idea. He, Erik with no surname, no family, no friends, and no home was loved. Could it really be possible? As if testing this idea Erik reached down and took a kiss from his fiancé gently, and Gaia returned the gesture with glee. A gift he couldn't even be given by his mother, he had just taken from this girl who was to be his bride, with no complaints. A true kiss, more than the simple peck on the cheek or lips she sometimes gave him that made his heart flutter… How wonderful kissing was! A simple brush of the lips made his heart dance but a real kiss made it sing. Erik was in love and was loved. Where life had once seemed so bleak and hopeless, he simply couldn't ever imagine it being anything but filled with wonder and life from now on.

Erik went up to the roof first, to ready himself by the priest performing the ceremony. Gaia seemed to float down the aisle on her father's arm. There was the hint of a tear in the old man's eyes as he paused at the altar to hug his youngest daughter tightly before joining his other girls and their husbands and children in the seats nearby. Most of the guests were foreign to Erik; he had never met any of Gaia's family before, and while he had seen several of the Freemason representatives around the city the only one he had truly met was the Physician, Sergio, who had cared for him when he first arrived and when he was shot. There was also a figure sitting towards the back of the small group in a hood against the sun Erik thought he vaguely recognized, but he couldn't think of who it might be.

Vows and rings were exchanged, Gaia smiling tearfully at the simple beauty of the ring Erik had chosen for her. It had nearly leapt out of the case at him, so reflective of her was its beauty. There were more elaborate rings with more diamonds for adornment, but the thin white gold band with a single modestly sized diamond was simple perfection. Erik adorned his thicker gold band with pride, pleased that the entire world would know the strange masked man was married at all, and to an angel no less.

With delicate hands, Erik folded back Gaia's veil to kiss his bride, a proper kiss. To his surprise and mirth Gaia leapt into his arms and kissed him back firmly through her tears of joy. Erik let her down carefully to walk back with her down the aisle, grinning like a boy on Christmas. When they passed the last aisle of the guests applauding them, he realized the hooded figure was now gone. Perhaps the figure's appearance had only been a trick of the lighting… but it was a clear, crisp autumn day with hardly a shadow to be had up on the roof. The young man was too pleased to fret about it much when his wife grinned up to him and allowed him to carry her down the stairs into the house where the reception was to be held.

At Erik's request the couple had not been wed in a church, which was a great convenience for everyone involved even if it was unconventional; drinking and eating were two of Italy's favorite past times, and moving from the roof into the house gave them all the more time to do just those. Erik stayed close to his new bride and thanked their guests politely, uncomfortable in large crowds even after nearly two years in the bustling city. He was growing and changing quite a bit, but there were some habits he knew he would never be rid of. Fortunately for him, Gaia shared his distaste for crowds and pulled her husband off to dance when one of her sisters made her way to them.

"That's Contessa. She's thick as mud and just as hard to get rid of," Gaia explained, and Erik chuckled as they danced like they had practiced in days before the ceremony. The music slowed, and Erik pulled his bride close against him to turn with her quietly. "When did you know you loved me?" She asked curiously, looking up at him as his brow furrowed under his mask.

"I'm not sure exactly when. Soon after I asked you to marry me, when I started thinking about what our lives would be like if you said yes."

Gaia smiled and rested her head on his good shoulder. "You thought that much about it?"

"It consumed every free thought, actually," he smiled back and rested his head on hers. "It was never quite the same, but it was always wonderful. Sometimes we had a handful of children and you were a marvelous mother, sometimes we had none but didn't seem to mind because we had one another. In every scenario we were nothing but happy."

"I had been hoping you would ask to marry me," Gaia confided quietly. "I know this probably sounds strange, but I'd been watching you and Papa for a while, whenever you were in the house or when I saw you while I was out running errands. I didn't trust you at all, not at first. But the more I saw of you the more I realized how genuine you really are. I didn't think there was anyone so… honest in Rome anymore. And I suppose there isn't considering you're not from here. You have your quirks and sometimes your short temper worries me… but there's nothing false about you at all. Some things are hidden maybe, but nothing is a lie," she smiled, touching his mask gently at that last statement. "That reminds me. What is my new name?" Gaia hadn't realized until then that she had no idea what Erik's surname was, and therefore what her new name would be. She would have to practice her signature…

"I suppose the same as it is now," upon seeing Gaia's confusion, Erik elaborated. "I don't have a surname."

The young bride frowned some, but only for a moment before shrugging. "Then I suppose I don't have one either. I'll be simply Gaia from now on," she smiled.

Erik felt a slight tap on his shoulder, and turned to look before freezing solid on the dance floor. Every drop of blood in his body turned to ice when he saw the figure of an older woman wearing a hooded cape… the same cape he had seen before on the roof. Gaia frowned some when she saw Erik's whole body seem to change. "Erik, what's wrong?" She ventured. "I'm sorry Signora, do we know you?"

"Erik does, but I'm afraid we haven't met," the older woman smiled and curtsied politely to the bride before speaking again in her heavily accented Italian. "I'm the mother of the groom. If you don't mind, I would like to have this dance."


	12. Chapter 12

"You never mentioned you were inviting your mother," Gaia remarked curiously; she had always gotten the feeling relations between Erik and his mother were tense at best. Erik didn't move a muscle.

"I didn't."

Madeleine smiled. "Your father did, Mamoiselle. Madame, excuse me," the old woman corrected quickly as the music for the next dance began. With a hesitant look to Erik who's whole posture seemed to beg her not to leave him alone with the woman, Gaia curtsied politely and stepped aside. There really wasn't much else she could do. Was she supposed to decline Erik's mother, a guest of her father's a dance with her own son?

Erik took his mother's hand in his and danced. "What are you doing here, Mother?"

"Don't sound so upset! I was invited by your father-in-law, just like I told your bride. Oh Erik, she really is lovely. I never thought…" Madeleine trailed off, at a loss for words.

"You never thought anyone would marry me at all," Erik finished for her. "I never thought so either. You wouldn't like her besides her looks," the masked man told his mother simply, and she looked shocked.

"Well why not? She seems perfectly lovely."

"Because she isn't perfect."

Madeleine frowned at that. "Of course not, Erik. Nobody's perfect. Has she seen… you know?"

A triumphant sort of smile played on Erik's lips then. "Yes, she has. And she loves me anyway. I suppose that makes her a better woman than you."

"I was hardly older than she is when I had you, Erik. I was still a girl," she offered in her own defense.

"Yet somehow she is more able to love me than you ever were."

"I loved you, Erik. In my own way, I loved you. I just… couldn't show it. I couldn't stomach the idea until just before you ran away. Where did you go?" She ventured, but Erik remained silent causing Madeleine to frown. "I don't blame you for hating me. I was wretched to you. Coming here was a horrible idea."

"Yes, it was Mother," Erik replied firmly. "Just when my life is starting to take a turn for the better here you are to step all over it."

This assault made Madeleine reel; the words were bad enough, but Erik's voice had been able to convey emotion more potently than any face ever could. "Don't speak to me like that, Erik. I am still your mother-"

"Not anymore," the man's voice was now full of hopeful realization. "I have a new life. A wife and a father who love me. I don't need you. I am disowning you, Madeleine," Erik announced.

Madeleine gaped. "Who was it who raised you? Who chased the monsters away when they came in your dreams? Who fed you and clothed you-"

"That was about all you did, Madeleine. You fed and clothed me, nothing more. I certainly wasn't raised! If anyone raised me at all it was the dog! Sasha was more of a mother to me than you ever were. But I suppose I do have to thank you; if you weren't such a wretched excuse for a woman I would have never come to Italy, and would never have met my wife. So with that I urge you to eat, drink, and be merry, but I also urge you never to show your face in Rome again after today. This is my home now, and you're not welcome in it," the music stopped and with it their dance as Erik pulled away to rejoin his wife with a firm kiss.

Gaia frowned some, concerned. "Are you okay, Erik?"

"Gaia, I've never felt better," he promised with a genuine smile. "I think it's about time we open our gifts don't you?" After inspecting her husband for a long moment, she nodded and smiled back.

"Okay," she agreed, moving to get a strip of black fabric she had prepared the night before as a blindfold and dangling it in front of him. "You can't open yours so you're going to have to come with me," she grinned, tying Erik's eyes with the strip of fabric gently so as not to knock his mask out of place.

Obediently Erik followed his wife into the study, which had been closed and locked for the duration of the evening so far. She nearly jumped out of her skin with excitement when she let them into the room, leading her husband in by the elbow as their family followed. Gaia lit the lamps and finally pulled off her husband's blindfold, kissing his shoulder as she did so. "Well? What do you think?"

Before Erik stood a grand piano in all its glory, made of cherry wood and embellished with ivory amaryllis flowers as pure white as the keys of the piano themselves. Erik stared in awe; when she had said all she had gotten him was a piano he had assumed it was like the simple upright piece he had grown up playing church hymns on… this was a work of art in itself, surely an expensive antique.

"Gaia, this is too much," he told her, looking down at her grinning face with wide eyes. "It's stunning."

"Nothing is too much," she promised, moving to her toes to peck his cheek. "Go on then, play it!" She urged, pushing her husband toward the bench.

"I haven't played in years…" he insisted, but moved to the bench anyway. The closest he had come to playing an instrument this fine was sneaking into the church to play the pipe organ, which was another beast entirely. The keys were slightly larger than he remembered them being on the upright, but his hands were larger too since he had more than doubled in age since he last played. After playing a few scales to get used to the strange feel of the instrument he moved into Chopin's Nocture in C sharp minor with as much grace as the composer himself might have had. Gaia sat next to him, awestruck by the sound; Erik had mentioned he played the piano as a boy, but this was not simply playing the piano. Erik's fingers seemed to float over the keys, stroking them ever so gently as if stroking a lover, and they sang for him just like a lover would with unmatched grace and purity. The whole room applauded when Erik had finished, murmuring among themselves about his talent; surely he couldn't be any older than twenty but he played like a seasoned composer!

"Erik, you never told me you were so good!" His bride scolded. "I would have gotten a piano ages ago…"

"It never came up," he shrugged and kissed her with a smile. "Thank you. It's easily the most beautiful piano I've seen let alone had the opportunity to play. I'm sure I will get plenty of use out of it in our new home," he offered, and Gaia feigned surprise for the good of her father and the rest of her family

"What new home?" She pried, and Erik moved down to the basement and up into the study again to bring her the papers, neatly tied in a powder blue ribbon. Gaia opened them, and once again she nearly cried with joy. Once again, the tears that welled in her eyes were real; she still could not fathom the magnitude of the gift he was giving her. It was something she had dreamed of ever since she had been old enough to recognize her distaste for Roman life. They would have their own little sanctuary, a place to grow old together away from the hustle of city life. They could live at their own pace, do whatever they pleased wherever they pleased to do it and would have no one to hold them accountable for their actions.

Gaia kissed her husband deeply, and Erik returned the gesture in full. "I love you, Erik," she promised from the bottom of her heart, and Erik kissed her again.

"I love you too, Gaia. I think it's about time for us to leave the party?" He suggested, and Gaia nodded eagerly. The pair said their goodbyes to the guests, who would stay and drink well into the night while the pair retired to a quiet hotel to spend their wedding night.

Erik carried his bride over the threshold of their room, in spite of the fact the legend only applied in their own home. It was simply another excuse to be closer to the love of his life. Gaia grinned as he set her back on her feet once they were inside the room. "Erik, it's beautiful! Look they've even put roses on the bed…" she smiled, moving to sit on the edge of the bed that was indeed littered with red and white rose petals. With a sigh of happy exhaustion she laid back with her arms spread across the large bed, kicking off one of her shoes even as Erik moved to her feet to remove the other one for her. Gaia smiled as Erik kissed the top of her foot before moving his kisses upwards to her shin, knee, and finally her thigh. She sat up gently, every nerve suddenly on edge at the foreign touch. Gently Erik pulled off her garter, kissing where it had once adorned before unrolling her stockings to kiss her bare leg. Quietly she wondered at his confidence, curious as to whether or not it was just an act and if he was really as nervous as she was.

"Does it really hurt? Contessa said-" she started quietly before her breath caught in her throat as Erik kissed her neck gently.

"I've heard it only hurts for a moment or two, and only the first time," he admitted quietly, repeating what he had overheard around a gypsy campfire. The Gypsies were an even more open race than the Italians; everything Erik knew about sex and sexuality came from their debauchery around the evening fire.

Gaia nodded and moved to meet her husband's lips with hers, kissing him deeply. Erik was trying his best not to think about the enormity of the night ahead of them. He moved on instinct and desire to please alone, trying to entice her as much as possible in case her nerves overtook her for any reason. He had dreamed about this night ever since proposing to her, and in more than one scenario something had removed his mask and she had recoiled…

His bride hummed softly as they kissed, and the vibration set Erik's body on fire. She moved to try and untie the back of her dress but was unable to reach in her lace sleeves. "Do you think you could..?" She asked, and Erik nodded as she turned some so he could reach the ribbon. Gaia slipped from the bodice, pulling it down shyly; Erik had surely seen most of her form before under the tattered nightgown she had worn the night Marco broke in, but somehow it was different tonight. The ache in her breast and her longing to be touched eventually won over her shyness as Erik kissed her again and his warm hands brushed against her stomach before venturing up cautiously to her breasts. She hummed again at the touch and buried her face in her groom's neck to kiss there languidly. When she reached up to move Erik's mask, he pulled her hands away with much more control than the last time she had tried to remove it. She frowned some but the pleading look in Erik's eyes elicited a kiss and a nod of understanding. When he was ready they would make love completely bare, but for now he still needed his crutch.

Erik undressed as Gaia slipped out of the remainder of the dress and into the sheets that smelled faintly of roses and sandalwood. She breathed in the smell of her husband deeply as he draped himself over her, careful not to crush her under his weight. Erik's guess had been right; it hurt only a moment before she dissolved into bliss beneath him, toes curling as she clutched at him in pleasure the likes of which she had never known. She had always thought sex couldn't be any nicer than stroking something soft or falling asleep in warm sheets, but it was so much more than that. Gaia had been alone for so much of her life that the closeness overwhelmed her every sense much as it did Erik's when they both reached their release and tangled their limbs, she knew Erik was thinking the same thing she was; how wonderful it would be to never be alone again.


	13. Chapter 13

Gaia shrieked and ran into the bathroom of the hotel, trying to pull the door closed behind her with all her weight but with no luck. Erik pulled the door open seemingly with ease and Gaia feel into his arms with a yelp. "Erik let me go!" She laughed, squirming as she beat on his bare chest.

Erik grinned. "No, I caught you fair and square," he informed her with a prolonged kiss. "And now I get a prize."

"You counted too fast, I didn't have enough time to find a good hiding place," she complained, kissing him back before pouting to emphasize her point.

"I counted just as fast as last time," the nearly naked man informed his bride. "Let's see… what should my prize be…" he pondered out loud, teasingly.

"Make it an easy one, I'm exhausted and Papà is expecting us home for lunch," she teased right back, sauntering away from him and letting her hips sway as she moved to perch on the bed and wait for his verdict. It was a game the couple had been playing all morning, hiding with full intent to be found easily so they could collapse into bed as their "prize".

Erik was surprised at how much Gaia enjoyed sex. His only experience with sex came from watching the campfire debauchery of the gypsies, where love was made openly but the women usually seemed so… fake in their joy. Some of them were either wonderful actors or truthfully excited, but so many of the women were merely at the mercy of their man. Gaia was different. Their shy first time had erupted into a fiery second time, which smoldered for ages in a third and fourth time. They rested between each time, catching their breath and wondering in the feeling they shared as if they were the only people in the world capable of feeling so wonderful. Neither of them had slept at all, too caught up in one another to rest for longer than was absolutely necessary. Twice since their first time making love Gaia had even been the one to take initiative, and it was she who had suggested the sexual spin on her favorite childhood game.

It was unclear when exactly she had fallen in love, and even more unclear when that love had become so deep. She knew so little about him, Gaia thought to herself repeatedly, but she didn't really care. What she knew of him she adored to no end. Erik was incapable of doing anything half way, and was passionate about every task he took on to a fault. Even in bed he was rapidly learning her body and the things that made her squirm and moan not even a full day later. Sex was quickly becoming her new favorite hobby, simply because it was something she got to share exclusively with Erik. The act itself made her feel as close to him as their talks during recovery. Erik had never said so, but Gaia knew she was learning him better than any person, man or woman, alive. That thought made her feel incredibly special, blessed even. Erik was such a strange, amazing man she was honored to be the world's one and only expert on the working of his mind.

After one final playful romp, Gaia lay over him, arms folded neatly under her chin as she looked up his chest at him with a smile. Erik pushed a strand of long dark hair from her face and kissed her tenderly. It was moments like this that made him wish his magic was real, and that he could stop time forever and capture her in this moment.

"I'm thinking about cutting it off," she remarked, absently leaning into his touch. "Now that I'm a bride it seems silly to have such long hair."

"Don't. It's wonderfully enticing," Erik informed her, twirling a strand around his finger.

"I know it is," she laughed. "That's why young ladies are supposed to wear their hair long, to attract men. I've already got the man I want, why keep it so long?"

"Because even after we're married I still find it attractive. Let the other men look, it will be amusing to watch their faces sink when they realize you're taken," and by a masked stranger no less. Yes, watching the young men of Rome slowly realize its greatest beauty was taken by a beast would be entertaining indeed.

Gaia smiled gently and kissed his chest, deciding she would keep her hair in that case. She closed her eyes comfortably for a long moment before a thought came to mind. "Your mother. What was it she wanted?" She asked curiously, opening her eyes again to look up at her husband.

"Nothing but to see for herself if whatever your father told her was true. You don't need to worry about her again, I've told her I am disowning her."

The girl's face moved into a frown. "You didn't have to do that, Erik. She lives so far away we would never have seen her. There's never any use in burning bridges…"

"If you had burned the bridge with Marco he might not have been such a fool," Erik countered, and Gaia's brow furrowed. "Besides, it felt remarkable. That woman has tormented me for longer than even I realized. Seeing her again… it opened old wounds. I don't need her, and she certainly doesn't need me."

"I wish I could have spoken to her," Gaia remarked after a long moment. "I have a thing or two I should have liked to tell her."

"Like what?"

"Like whatever it was she did that made you so… bitter against her and your childhood. She must have been a monster to you, and no child deserves anything but love from a parent. I wish I could have told her how much I love you, so she would always know at least someone could where she couldn't."

Erik smiled sadly and kissed the top of her head. "There isn't any need. I told her all that myself before she left. But I'm sure she would have believed it more coming from you."

"When can we move into our new home?" Gaia asked, changing the subject to a more pleasant one to end their wedding night on with a smile. What was past should remain in the past where it belonged; Madeleine had opened old wounds, but Gaia was there now to kiss them well.

"As soon as it's built." Erik laughed. "I haven't even started quarrying the stone yet. We'll have to move up north and live in an apartment or a hotel for a while until it's ready, it's too far to commute."

"As long as it's half as lovely a hotel as this one is, it will be wonderful. But Erik, what are we going to do about Papà?" She asked quietly, something she hadn't thought about before. Her father still needed someone to cook and clean for him, and company in his loneliness.

"Well I suppose he can come live with us," Erik suggested, having not thought about it either. "In the workings of the bed and breakfast, so we can have our privacy and he his."

Gaia nodded quietly. "I suppose that sounds all right. If he'll come; he built our house for my mother. It might take some convincing to get him to leave."

"Then I guess we will have to stay here until such a sad day comes that he passes," Erik told her quietly, and Gaia closed her eyes. She felt terribly selfish for feeling as sad that she and her husband might have to put their life together on hold as she did that her father would someday die.

"I guess so."

"Don't be sad, my bride. Life is sweet, and it's only just beginning for us," Erik promised her with a kiss. "Let's start heading back. I don't know about you, but I am spent and starving." He smiled, a gesture with Gaia returned as she moved off of him reluctantly.

"Me too. Erik?"

"Yes Gaia?"

"I love you," Gaia's small smile was so genuine it made Erik's heart melt. Those were three words that would never grow old.

"I love you too, Gaia. More than all the stars in the sky," he promised back, kissing her deeply as they laid back down for one last chance to make love in their private little world before returning to reality.


	14. Chapter 14

"I can't leave," Giovanni told the pair with a kind, but sad smile. "I'm too old and sentimental to be leaving Rome for the north. Besides, the two of you will be far too busy with each other and with my grandchildren to be taking care of an old man."

Erik frowned some. "It's all right Master, we'll stay here with you then," the young man promised, looking down to his wife whose brow was furrowed.

Giovanni began to laugh before coughing violently. Now it was Erik's brow that furrowed in concern; that was not a healthy cough. "Go, go. You're both plenty old enough to be on your own," the old man promised them once he caught his breath. "I'll get one of my other daughters to stop in from time to time like they ought to have been doing all along. Poor Gaia, my dear, you've been taking care of me for far too long. I think sometimes you forget that you are my daughter, not my wife," he teased with a smile, and Gaia smiled sadly in return. "You are a wife now though, and you have a husband to take care of. Will you still consider joining the Masonry though, Erik?" The old man asked curiously; the fact he was married tied him to Italy more than Giovanni had thought Erik could be tied anywhere, but he still feared for the boy if something happened and he was forced to travel.

"Of course, Master," Erik promised. "It would be a great honor. I've been studying the histories and everything for months."

The old man nodded, pleased. "I'll see what I can do about having you initiated earlier than January then. It would be best if you two had a place to stay before the winter sets in too firmly. You know how I fret."

Before December had come to a close, Erik was a Freemason and traveling with his wife to Modena, several miles outside of the site of their future home. Erik suddenly called for the carriage driver to stop in the middle of a field, filled with such excitement Gaia couldn't help but be curious in spite of her recent melancholy over abandoning her father. "Erik, what is it?"

"We're here," he told her, and got out of the carriage, moving around to the other side to open Gaia's door a offer her a hand to step down.

"Erik we must be another fifteen or twenty miles outside of the city," she frowned, looking around some. It was when she saw past the carriage to the place Erik had been looking at from his window that she realized what he meant. "…This is the land!"

Gaia looked to the other side of the road, smiling at the sight of a large vineyard and a horribly run down looking brick winery bordering a small forest nearly a mile off the road. "Oh Erik, it's even more beautiful than you drew it!" She gasped. "How much of it is ours?"

"All of it, including the woods and the field across the road from the vineyard. I thought we might put horses over there, and keep growing grapes here," Erik suggested, and Gaia nodded eagerly.

"That's a wonderful idea. I've always wanted horses…" Gaia was met with a kiss by her husband.

"You will have everything you want and more," he promised with a smile. "Are you feeling okay? You've been awfully quiet since we left."

"Just a little under the weather from the travel is all," she promised. "I think I caught Papà's cold. Do you think he's all right?"

"I think he's ecstatic to have the house to himself again," Erik told her confidently. "And I'm sure your sisters will do a fine job caring for him," he added, sensing her unease. "Besides, the doctor is only a few doors down, and they've been having wine more and more frequently to pass the time."

Gaia nodded. "You're right, of course. I'm sure he's fine. I suppose I caught his worry along with his cold," she smiled up to her husband, who met her with a kiss. "You'd better stop that or you'll get sick too."

"I honestly can't remember the last time I was sick, and I can remember every day of my life past early childhood," Gaia's head tipped curiously at that news.

"Really? I wasn't sick often as a girl, this is strange for me. But to never be sick, not even a day?"

"Not even a day, unless you count cracking my head and being shot," Gaia shook her head to indicate that she didn't. "Queer isn't it?"

"Very. Well kiss away then, perhaps I'll catch some of your immunity next," she smiled, moving back to the carriage when Erik opened the door, kissing her as she stopped inside.

When he sat down next to her and urged the driver forward, Gaia rested her head in his lap trying to make the most of the uncomfortable ride. "What makes you think you're getting a cold?" Erik asked her curiously as he stroked her hair. "You sound fine."

"Just a tightness in my chest, and a little light headedness. I suppose it could be nerves and the environment too, couldn't it?" She wondered aloud, and Erik nodded.

"It certainly could be. This is a lot different than you're used to. Maybe it's all the fresh air," he teased some, causing Gaia to smile.

"I'm going to like it here, Erik. I can't wait until it's done!" She exclaimed, turning onto her back to look up at him from his lap. "You're going to make such a name for yourself you'll be able to retire by the time you're thirty, and spend all the time in the world with me. Making wine, drinking wine, making love…" she fantasized with a smile meant only for him.

"A dream come true," he promised, leaning over her to kiss her gently. Gaia managed to fall asleep in her husband's lap in spite of the rough ride. Gaia wasn't the only one of them who had caught her father's worry. While it was only two years ago he had apprenticed under a Gypsy medicine woman, it seemed like an entire lifetime. It was an apprenticeship that had gone unfinished, but still left Erik with a good hunch for when an illness was more than just the common cold… a hunch he felt now. Gaia rarely got sick by her own admittance, but was clearly feeling unwell. She would be better in a few days once they were off the road, he told himself. It was probably just the cold and the dust, and the stress of leaving home. Gaia had never traveled so far in her life, and had never been so far from her father before. Surely it was just stress and dust… or so he told himself.

The apartment in Modena was modest, but lovely enough for a newlywed couple. It came furnished with a large enough bed for all their nightly exertions, and was fully equipped with a moderately sized kitchen, sitting room, and dining room in addition to the bedroom. It was a perfect retreat for the pair of them, safe up on the second floor with a sturdy lock and tight windows.

Gaia slept fitfully that first night, which of course meant Erik didn't sleep at all. At nearly three in the morning she sat bolt upright, drenched in a cold sweat. "Get off!" She shouted tearfully before panicking slightly at the unfamiliar room. Erik sat up and wrapped her in his arms, pulling his wife into his lap where she curled up, shaking slightly. "I'm so sorry, I didn't mean to wake you…"

Erik kissed the top of her head gently but held her firm. "It's fine. Was it Marco?" Gaia shook her head.

"Yes… Erik, I'm not going to have that nightmare forever, am I?" She asked quietly, brow furrowed some before covering her mouth to cough gently.

"It's hard to say." He admitted, unable to lie to her about something so serious. "I hope not. But I'm always going to be here to remind you it's not happening, that it didn't happen." Erik reached over to the bedside table to hand his wife the cup of water he kept there for her in case her cold worsened. Gaia drank deeply, unable to recall water ever tasting so sweet and thirst-quenching.

"Let me change, I'm all sweaty…" she offered, moving to get out of bed but Erik stopped her.

"You need sleep, I don't mind."

"But I don't want to get you –"

Erik silenced his wife with a firm kiss. "I've slept in worse conditions than with a sweaty woman," he promised, teasing her gently as he laid back next to her to hold her tight. "Go to sleep."


	15. Chapter 15

Giovanni Turri passed away at the age of sixty three, an old man who should have lived to be even older. When news of the man's death reached the couple Modena, husband and wife put their lives on hold and returned to Rome as soon as Gaia's grief eased enough to allow her to move.

As immensely upset as Erik had been by the news, he knew Gaia was tenfold more so. Before he had met her, her father had been her world. Her reason for staying in Rome was her attachment to the only family she had ever truly had; her mother died young, and she was so incredibly different from her sisters. Giovanni was the only living member of her family she had loved, and now he was gone. What haunted her the most was the idea that he died alone. Only a year after Erik and Gaia had moved north, their father had passed away… surely that wasn't a coincidence, Gaia thought. No, there were no coincidences in life. Everything happened for a reason. Her mother had died and it pulled her from a school she hated into a loving, if tiresome household caring for her father. If she hadn't been home, Erik would never have quite literally fallen into her life and brought her such love and happiness… but if she hadn't left home, surely her father would not have died.

Erik shared in Gaia's guilt more than he let her know. He tried to comfort her as best he could, but he himself was in need of comfort; at nineteen years old, Erik was only playing the part of the man of the house. He went to work, paid the bills, made love with a beautiful wife… but he was just acting. Improvising. At heart Erik was only a boy, no matter how adult he looked or acted. It was one of the things Gaia loved about him, but now it was tearing him apart; now he was a boy who had lost his father, the only real adult he had ever respected and loved. Giovanni was the sort of man Erik aspired to be in his daily routine, play-acting at manhood. His work on the home he was building for his wife was nearly finished and gathering a great deal of attention from the residents of Modena and Bologna, who were already requesting his services for their upcoming projects... and while Erik had always been a natural architect, he knew he was only getting work because of Giovanni. Giovanni had taught him to quell his fear of people enough to serve them so that he could serve his art. It was Giovanni who had taught him to follow his instinct, but to do so quietly and modestly. To choose his battles, and stick to his ideals when he needed to but to sacrifice art for practicality at times. Everything Erik had come to like about himself over the past two years, Giovanni had taught him.

The young couple had both wept for hours at the news, but it was only Gaia who continued to weep on the carriage ride to Rome. Erik did his best to keep his composure, if only so he could offer as much comfort as he could to his wife. But it wasn't easy; how does one give comfort when one lacks it? The best he could do was stroke his wife's hair as she cried, and quite literally bite his tongue when she raged.

"This is all your fault!" She spat at him wildly in the carriage just as they left their apartment. Erik could see heads turning as the carriage rattled down the streets of Modena, curious as to the outburst within. "If you hadn't wanted to build that stupid house as a wedding present, if you had just thought of something _normal_ he might still be alive! I might have still been in Rome to take care of him while he was sick!" Erik bit the inside of his cheeks so hard he tasted blood, trying his best not to lash back out at her like instinct demanded he do.

"This isn't your fault, Gaia. You haven't been feeling well yourself, you probably would have just gotten worse in Rome. Whatever it is you caught, the fresh air seems to be helping," he pointed out quietly; the tightness in her chest had alleviated itself after several days in Modena, but was prone to coming back when she was under stress, like around the day she had coined his birthday since he wasn't sure of his and the day Erik nearly broke his neck falling from the roof of their new home. The week after that particular event, she had developed a rattling cough and had lost a significant amount of weight as she tended to her husband in his pain. Erik was deathly worried the stress now would trigger another illness.

Erik's silence only made Gaia more upset. "Well aren't you going to say something, or have you gone stupid on me?" She demanded. "I wish I never-" Whatever it was she wished was never voices as her words dissolved into a deep, painful cough. Erik frowned deeply and rubbed her back in an attempt to soothe her as she cried during short, desperate breaths. After what seemed like ages, Gaia's cough subsided and she simply sobbed quietly, curling back into her husband's lap and feeling even worse after having been so harsh with him.

When finally they rattled into Rome, it seemed as if the whole city was mourning. Nearly everyone who lived in Rome knew or at least had heard of Giovanni. He had been a well-liked man, a remarkable artist and philanthroper. After hours, the carriage came to a stop in front of the house they had once called a home so long ago. Erik stepped out and moved around the carriage to help his wife down. Gaia accepted his hand and stepped down carefully, hugging him tightly as she did so. "I'm sorry Erik. I didn't mean any of those things I said. I'm just-"

Erik kissed her gently, unafraid of catching whatever it was that plagued her; if he were going to get ill he would have any of the other times she had been. They were virtually inseparable in sickness and in health, just as they had vowed. If he hadn't bitten the inside of his cheek so hard earlier he might have been alarmed by the taste of blood on her lips, but as it was it went unnoticed. "I know. Thank you, I accept your apology gratefully," he promised, kissing her forehead this time and hugging her tightly. As they stepped inside the house, people flocked to them give their condolences. As they had at their wedding reception, the pair stayed as close together as they could for as long as possible, until Gaia caught sight of one of her nieces in tears and left unattended.

"I'm going to go see to Gabrielle for a moment. Her mother must be preoccupied…" she explained with an apologetic look to Erik who dismissed her with a kiss. Erik moved off to the side of the room, taking up a glass of wine and standing to the side of the room with one of the few men he actually knew from the Freemasonry. The physician Sergio looked to the young man with a frown.

"I'm terribly sorry for your loss, Brother Erik," Erik took a deep drink from his wine and nodded.

"Yes. So am I," he admitted quietly. Sergio had been one of the only men at the Lodge who had not once demanded to know why he wore a mask or requested that he remove it in the presence of his Brothers. Combined with the care he had given Erik when he was twice injured, Erik had grown to respect the man. "I take it you saw to him?"

The physician nodded. "I did. It's truly a miracle he lived this long, to be honest. I've seen cases of men dying within months after their wives, Giovanni lived a good ten years, and as a stoneworker on top of that! He had pain in his back, knees, elbows… and finally his lungs. It was simply his time," frowned Sergio.

"You should have told us he was ill," Erik reprimanded quietly. "Gaia would have wanted to have been here when he passed."

"I couldn't have possibly given you word in time. He kept brushing off my insistence to listen to his chest for that horrible cough. I didn't realize it was consumption until just yesterday, when he died. I had figured it was a chronic case of pneumonia he was managing to keep at bay, I never could have guessed-"

"Consumption?" Erik demanded, with a deep frown. "How on earth did Giovanni become exposed to consumption?"

"He caught it from his wife before she died, surely. She likely caught it as a child. It's such a strange disease, it almost seems to choose who it infects, and how it infects them. In some people it takes months, years, even decades. In others it kills them nearly overnight. Signora Turri probably got it as a child from her own mother. She was only ill in spurts, until the end. It's strange, we actually thought Gaia was ill with it at one point in her youth. The poor girl had a horrible, bloody cough for a year or two in her youth, but got better all on her own. It's remarkable what a youthful body is capable of. I've seen children bounce back from all sorts of ailments, but at the same time pass away from something as mundane as a cold…" the physician mused, taking a drink of his wine.

Erik frowned deeply, looking to Gaia as she wiped tears from the eyes of the young girl she was tending to. The physician was right; consumption was such a strange disease. He had read about it as a boy, and even seen it in the gypsy camp twice; a young woman caught it from her Russian lover, and wasted away into nothing in only days. The disease consumed her, as its name indicated. But he had heard victims appearing to be ill with consumption healing on their own, as the doctor described possibly happening in Gaia's case. He had also heard of the disease taking years or more to progress, as the doctor had also described… but he had never in any of his admittedly shallow studies heard of consumption returning after years of health. Surely it could not be what plagued Gaia.


	16. Chapter 16

Erik never told Gaia what he feared ailed her, not even when she was in ill health for nearly a month after her father's death. The girl was slim to begin with, but wasted away to almost nothing in the course of only a few weeks. She hardly ate for lack of appetite and pain when she swallowed. For almost a week all she could do was drink a potent broth of chicken and vegetables Erik made in an attempt to get something, anything into her stomach.

Gaia could tell something was wrong with her husband in the weeks she was ill, and every possibility terrified her. What if he was tired of getting sick so often? This was the worst of four times just in the year they had been married! Gaia could never remember being this ill, though she had been told once by her father they had thought she was going to die when she was only a toddler. Ever since those early years she had been blessed with good health though, until this past year. What if Erik decided he couldn't live with her if she was going to be so troublesome?

That couldn't be it, she told herself firmly. He was such an angel to her while she was ill. He made her bitter teas which eased her cough and allowed her to sleep, and sweet teas to nourish her. For a month he cooked and cleaned the house, forcing her to stay in bed and sleep as long as she could. When she ventured out of bed he banished her to the sofa to rest as soon as she felt remotely weak. Outwardly, it seemed she was the only thing on his mind, his entire world. But Gaia knew him well enough to know something was going on in his head that wasn't being reflected in his actions.

After what felt like ages, Gaia finally began to recover physically, though her concern about what her husband was hiding from her didn't help her spirit improve. When she was well enough for Erik to return to work on their home, there was a period of a week where they hardly spoke at all. Erik left just before dawn to the house on the vineyard, and returned just after sunset to a quiet dinner and a quiet wife. Instead of sitting up late and talking with her he sat in the living room and read, concerned by her quiet but too uneasy to pry.

One night, Erik slipped into their room nearly an hour after Gaia had gone to bed. He watched curiously as she turned rolled over to face the outside of the bed rather than where her husband normally slept. Her movement was too hasty to have been made in sleep. "What are you doing up?" He asked quietly, taking off his shirt to climb into bed.

"Nothing," she remarked just as quietly, facing away from him still.

"You went to bed almost an hour ago."

"I know," there was a long silence. Erik stared at the ceiling thoughtfully before looking over to his wife as she moved onto her back to watch the ceiling as well. "What is it you do all day, Erik?" Gaia's voice was so uneasy, Erik couldn't help but frown.

"I work on the house. It's mostly finishing touches now. Carving the doors and furniture," Gaia's silence at his answer gave Erik an unwelcome realization. "You think I'm seeing someone else?" He demanded, sitting up in bed angrily.

Gaia shook her head and frowned deeply. "I never said that-"

"You didn't have to," he interrupted. "How could you possibly think I'm seeing someone else, Gaia? Have you ever so much as seen another woman look at me? You are the beauty in our marriage, not I," Erik informed her sharply.

"I don't think you're seeing someone else, Erik," she promised, sitting up. "I would die of a broken heart if I ever thought that. It's just… We never talk anymore. I worry you maybe stay out longer than you have to just so you won't have to be around me. I feel like you're hiding something from me, and I don't like it."

"If my goal were to avoid you, would I have put building our house on hold for the entire duration of your illness? You're the one who went from asking me how my day had gone to hardly saying two words," Erik pointed out.

"You were avoiding me while I was sick," Gaia told him simply. "And you avoid me now when I go to bed… we haven't made love since before Papà died. I'm not worried that you're going to run into the arms of another woman… but I do worry that you'll run. You're such a free spirit Erik, you were on the run when you came here. I worry you're just… not the sort who can settle down," she frowned deeply.

Erik leaned over and kissed his wife deeply. "You were sick for nearly four weeks after your father died, you've only been better a handful of days. Of course we haven't made love."

Gaia kissed him back and rested her forehead on his masked one. "I know, but the opportunity hasn't even presented itself. You come to bed after I'm asleep, and you're leaving as I wake up… How did we go from making love every night to not even kissing goodnight in five weeks? I feel like you're pulling away from me."

It wasn't until Gaia said it that Erik realized that was exactly what was happening. He was pulling away from her. He cared for her while she was ill, but hardly spoke to words to her the entire time. Now that she was well he made no effort to reach out to her when she pulled away herself. He had been quite content to withdraw into his own world out of self preservation.

There was no longer any question about the nature of Gaia's illness. That past month the signs had been all too obvious. A bloody cough, rapid weight loss, severe fatigue, all of it consuming her from the inside out. Consumption had taken her mother, her father, and was now wrapping its bony fingers around Gaia. She had recovered this time, and the times before, but the disease would be back and one day she would not recover. Consumption was a death sentence, leaving Gaia with an expiration date nobody but God could guess. Perhaps she would live another month. Perhaps a year. Maybe a decade or two, or maybe even into old age like her father had managed. There was simply no way to know… and Erik was terrified. He knew as well as anyone that everybody dies. Everybody has an expiration date, but Gaia was different. Gaia's was unnatural, and would undoubtedly be untimely. When she died, it would be the end of everybody who had ever loved him. The realization that he could be a widower before the age of twenty sobered him from the initial bliss of that first year of marriage; happiness doesn't last forever. Somehow it felt better to have control over the destruction of his happiness than to risk allowing the fates to decide, so he had withdrawn from the major source of happiness in his life, at the cost of her happiness.

Erik was quiet for a long time in the sobering reality of it, before realizing that Gaia was watching him intently, almost waiting for a response. Quietly he nodded. "You're right. I have been, even if I haven't meant to. I'm sorry," he offered quietly, now the one staring down at the sheets.

"Tell me what's bothering you, Erik. Is it Papà?" She pried, quietly taking his hands. "I was so selfish when we first found out… I know you loved him too. You must have been hurting."

"No. I was upset, but that's… not it," Erik offered. How does one tell something so innocent, so perfect about something so ugly as death? It felt like blasphemous to even think about. "Gaia… you're dying."

Gaia's heart sank and she pulled her hands away from his with tears in her eyes. "That's an awful thing to say, Erik," she reprimanded, pulling the sheets up around her and lying down, facing away from him once more.

"You had consumption as a child… it's back. I don't know how. I'm not sure anybody would know how. Maybe you caught it from your father, maybe you've had it all along… It's impossible to say," he told her quietly, watching her as a hand drew over her mouth and nose.

"You're lying. You would have gotten sick too, caring for me all this time," Gaia accused desperately, rolling over to face him with tears in her eyes.

"Some people simply don't get it, Gaia. Or maybe I have it and it's just waiting to take me too. But I've seen it before, Gaia, and you certainly have it," both of Gaia's hands moved over her mouth as she let out a sob so broken Erik's heart shattered. Immediately he laid down and pulled her into his arms, kissing her tears as she cried. She clutched at her husband desperately, sobbing into his bare chest with its ugly red scar from the bullet that had nearly taken his life. Erik trailed his kisses from her face to her lips, kissing her deeply while she cried.

Erik didn't realize how desperately he had wanted to cry until his tears were mixing with hers as they made love for the first time in weeks, both of them desperate for comfort and even more desperate never to lose the other. They made love until they were too exhausted to cry anymore, and eventually Gaia fell asleep naked and tangled in her husband's arms. She slept for hours and hours, utterly exhausted from the news and from the exertion of lovemaking. When she woke she was still naked and alone in bed. With a quiet frown she pulled the blankets tighter around her, seeking their comfort in the absence of her husband.

A moment later he walked in the door with a tray of tea, much to Gaia's surprise. She sat up in bed and watched curiously as he set the tray on the foot of the bed, pouring her a cup before taking one for himself and joining her back in the sheets. "What are you doing? I thought you had gone to the house…"

"I'm staying in today," he informed her, taking a long drink of tea.

Gaia held the cup in both hands, absorbing its warmth. "Why? You're so close to being done."

"Because I've been horrible to you the past few days, and you've done nothing to deserve it. Today it's only us. No sickness, no work, nothing," Gaia smiled softly into her cup, taking a drink of the strong morning tea prepared just how she liked. As strange as Erik could be, he was capable of being just as if not even more wonderful.

"I haven't told you how much I love you in a while I have?" She asked with a smile, and Erik shook his head.

"No, but feel free to. I certainly don't tire of hearing it."


	17. Chapter 17

Erik and Gaia moved into their home on the first day of spring. The masked man had not only built the home from the ground up, but had furnished it entirely on his own. The winery at the back of the property would take some time to covert to a bed and breakfast, but for now the couple was more than happy to move into their little home on the vineyard. The grapes sprouted with the first rain, and together Erik and Gaia began making their own wine, storing it in barrels in the basement to ferment so they could enjoy it in the years to come.

Gaia adored the home. It was everything she had ever dreamed of and more. With two floors and a basement, it had ample room for two people with room to grow into should they decide to have a family someday. For now the extra rooms each served their own purpose; one was a guest room in case Gaia's sisters decided to visit, one was a library, another was a study where the piano Gaia had given her husband for their wedding had gone. The kitchen was large enough for Erik to keep his wife company while she cooked without her feeling crowded, and the dining room was intimate enough for them to enjoy their meals by each other's side.

It had been several months since Gaia was last ill, much to both of their relief. Every day that went by in which Gaia maintained her health became a reason to celebrate. They resumed their nightly lovemaking, sometimes in their bed, other times in the bath, or even as open as the sitting room or the library, since they only rarely had visitors, and only during the day.

Every day Erik fell more and more in love with his wife, and Gaia more in love with her husband. There was only one thing that bothered her. "Erik?" She asked quietly one Sunday morning, enjoying a lazy morning in bed with her husband.

"Yes my love?"

"Why don't you ever take off your mask?" She asked, turning to face her husband curiously. "I've seen your face before."

Erik frowned some. "Old habits are hard to break," he explained.

"I know… but Erik, I love you. You know I would never be afraid of you, don't you?"

The masked man didn't answer. Gaia sat up in bed and looked down at him. "Well, don't you?

"I don't know that, no," Erik admitted shamefully, and Gaia frowned deeply.

"Don't be foolish. What reason have you ever given me to fear you?"

"I saw the look in your eyes when you first saw me," he told her quietly. Gaia hadn't realized he had been awake all that time ago, and frowned; she had indeed been frightened of his face initially, though her reaction still guilted her. "And I hurt you once…"

"Well Erik, how did you expect me to react? It's not as if you warned me. Your face… isn't easy to look at, my love. I can't deny that. But it isn't your face I'm in love with, it's the brilliant mind behind it," She promised quietly. "And as for hurting me, I don't hold you accountable for that and you shouldn't either. You grabbed my wrist, no harm was done. Saving my life more than makes up for that.

Erik frowned thoughtfully. "Why are you so curious about my face?"

"Because it's part of who you are. It's the only thing I feel like you're still hiding from me. We'll be married for a year and a half this Saturday, did you know that?"

"I did."

"A year and a half, and I still haven't made love with you completely bare," Gaia pointed out. "You've seen all of me, I still haven't seen all of you."

"I don't know what I would do if you were afraid of me…" he admitted so quietly Gaia could hardly hear him. She kissed her husband deeply.

"It's a senseless fear, Erik. It's only a face."

"If it's only a face why must you see?" He tried, desperately attempting to talk her out of her curiosity. But he had married a stubborn woman, and her stubbornness won over.

"Because it's your face, Erik. The face of the man I love. By default it's a beautiful face," she reasoned, kissing him again and without so much as a warning pulling off his mask as she pulled away. Gaia's logic was simple; distract him and make the move quick, like the prick of a needle. The pain would only last a moment, she reasoned, until Erik could see for himself she was not afraid. Once he was proven wrong they would make love, have lunch, and enjoy the remainder of their day as lazy as their usual Sundays.

This was not how the scene played out. Erik panicked the moment the mask left his face, immediately covering his face with his hands and moaning in anguish. Everything about the man changed in a heartbeat. Erik's confidence and charisma, his nearly animal magnetism and sensuality were all gone the instant the leather left his skin. He nearly fell from the bed in a desperate attempt to get away from her, blinded by his hands over his face and his eyes closed tightly against his own ugliness.

"Erik!" Gaia cried out in horror at his reaction, reaching out for him as he moved out of the bed and as far from her as possible.

"You bitch!" He seethed in agony. "Why did you have to do that? Why did you take my face?" Erik moaned, and Gaia sobbed.

"I'm sorry Erik, I didn't think-"

"Of course you didn't think!" He spat angrily from the corner her cowered in like a frightened animal. "Women never think!"

"You don't have to be so horrible, Erik," she told him, crying. "I didn't do anything wrong."

In Erik's twenty years of life, no good had ever come from removing his mask. Every single time the mask left his face, the results were disastrous; His face showed him monsters in the mirror, caused his mother to scream and beat him senseless, caused countless thrill seeking Europeans to shout and faint and jab him with sticks as he cowered in a cage. Even when he had won his freedom from a cage, he dreaded the point in his performance when he would be forced to remove his mask and look at the terror his naked face caused. The negativity of his face was so deeply ingrained in him now, it was a fear he would probably never be rid of.

"Didn't do anything wrong? You took Erik's face!" Erik spat from his corner, torn between staying in its safety and lashing out at her.

Gaia's heart sank to the pit of her stomach. "…Erik you're scaring me."

"Erik is scaring you?" He snapped, uncovering his face and standing in his full glory. At 6'3", Erik was immensely tall for any man of the day, and was slim but well framed because of the hard labor of his career. Erik had intimidation down to an art, and was as masterful at it as he was at the rest of his crafts. "After you swore you would never be afraid? That you loved Erik?"

Gaia was crying now, backing out of the bed and against the wall to put as much space between her and her husband as possible. She shook with fear, both at the sight of him and at his behavior; his face alone would not have terrified her, but even the most handsome man holding himself in such a way would have frightened her.

"I do love you, Erik, I swear on my life… but you're scaring me. Erik why are you acting like this-"

Before Gaia knew what was happening, Erik leapt on top of and over the bed to have at her, striking her so hard across the face Gaia saw stars and tasted blood. Her whole body reeled as she drifted out of consciousness for a moment, the wall behind her the only thing keeping her from collapsing at the blow. When she finally regained full consciousness, she collapsed out of anguish rather than pain; Erik was nowhere to be seen, but the mask was still there on the bed. What in God's name had happened?


	18. Chapter 18

Erik ran until his legs could no longer carry him. The breeze on his bare face was strange and frightening, but somehow exhilarating. The forest was miles deeper than it appeared to be from the little winery on their property, and Erik ran until he was surely off the land he owned and into wild territory. Finally he collapsed in the soft dirt at the foot of a large tree, leaning against its trunk for support as he gasped for air between sobs.

What had he done? He couldn't even fathom the enormity of it. He ran and ran, hoping, praying that running would make his guilt and heartbreak stop. It didn't; exhaustion only magnified the weight of what he had done. As soon as Erik had laid his hand on her, he knew he had done something horrible. The sound of his hand striking her cheek and the sight of her reeling afterwards would forever haunt him. He hadn't even stayed long enough to make sure she was all right; for all he knew, the blow had killed her. What had possessed him to do such a monstrous thing?

His face. His face was the reason for all of this. Like every time he had ever been without his mask, something horrible had happened… only this time it was his own fault. Gaia had not meant to cause him harm; she had never once been vicious towards him. Cautious, even guarded when they first met, but never cruel. Yet Erik had lashed out against her as if she were every screaming child, every fainting woman, every shouting boy, every beating he had ever received from his mother all rolled into one. It was a monster that had been lurking inside of him for years, dormant under the mask, and it had unleashed its fury on Gaia, the only living thing he loved.

She would never understand. How could she? Why should she, even? There was simply no excuse for what he had done. He had struck her with all of his considerable might square in the face, and was certain he had seen blood coming from her mouth and ear when he pulled back his hand. Every instinct in his body told him to run. Forget Gaia, forget Giovanni, forget Rome and be free. Leave your problems in Italy where they belong, they screamed to him. But Erik couldn't forget. He had never forgotten a single day in his entire life, and this day would be no different no matter how fast or how far he ran. He could run, to be sure, but he knew the humanity Giovanni had taught him would tear him to pieces.

Guilt like this was a new emotion for Erik, one he decidedly did not like. He had blamed himself for things in the past, to be sure, but never like this. This feeling was so powerful, so raw that it ate away at him from the inside out like a parasite. He had killed two men, but never had he felt like this. Was there any way to alleviate this pain?

Forgiveness. Forgiveness was the only thing that would ever allow him to sleep at night. No matter how far away from Italy Erik ran, he knew he would never sleep another night if he did not have Gaia's forgiveness. He didn't deserve it, but his mind craved it like his body craved oxygen. When finally he caught his breath, Erik stood again and walked back the way he came with quiet resolution; he would go to Gaia to forgiveness, if he hadn't killed her. If she wouldn't give it to him, he would leave Italy behind and do his best to start life fresh someplace else. If she was dead… if she was dead, he would hang himself in the forest and give his body to the wolves. The guilt of harming her he could live with, although he knew it would drive him mad. The guilt of killing her would surely kill him if he didn't commit the act himself.

The sun was on its way down over the horizon when Erik returned to the house on the vineyard. He had run as fast as he could for two hours, about six miles into the forest. That distance took him more than twice as long to walk with the weight of his crime on his shoulders.

Erik slipped in the door, and his heart sank at the eerie quiet. The sun was going down but none of the lamps were lit. Water should have been boiling on the stove in preparation for dinner, with his smiling wife in the kitchen eager to leave her work to welcome him home. Timidly, Erik searched the house for his wife, intent on saving the bedroom for last out of fear of what he might find there. When even that room was empty, Erik's heart sank. The bed was unmade nearly seven hours later. It was as if Gaia had simply vanished into thin air.

The sound of moving water from the bathroom nearly made Erik jump out of his skin. The bathroom! He hadn't thought to check there. Gently he knocked on the door before turning the handle slightly, frowning to find it locked; they never locked the door to the bathroom, even when bathing. It was pointless since they quite often bathed together. "Gaia?"

The slightest sound of movement was the only sign of life from beyond the door. Erik rested his bare forehead against the door, clutching his heart. "Gaia please come out. I have to see you."

"Go away, Erik. I don't ever want to see you again."

Erik's heart shattered into a thousand pieces at harshness of the phrase. Those words would ring forever in his ears. 'I don't ever want to see you again'. Was there ever a more hurtful phrase? Certainly not when spoken by Beauty to the beast who adored her so. When finally he found words, his voice reflected his utter heartbreak. "Surely you don't mean that?"

Again the sound of moving water, and the rush of water down the drain. Erik moved away from the door as Gaia opened it. In her hand was a small paring knife, the only thing giving her confidence to confront him after his terrible rage. Erik frowned deeply at the sight of her, clutching the knife with white knuckles while her eye had already begun to blacken. Gaia didn't dare leave the safety of the bathroom and its open window behind her, but stayed in the doorway with her robe tight around her. "Talk," she demanded, wiping at her good eye at the sight of him. He was filthy, shirtless still from bed, but ever inch of him was a different man than the one who had attacked her; that man had been large and intimidating, this man was little more than a kicked dog.

"I… I don't even know what to say, Gaia. I tried to think of something, anything I could say to make this better, but I can't. There just isn't anything that will make this right," Erik told her as he stared at the ground, unable to look at the damage he had done to her. "I'm sorry. Only God knows how much I am sorry. All of the begging and pleading in the world should never earn your forgiveness. And I know that it probably won't. I can't explain what happened except that you married a man as ill as you are, in a different way."

"Even more ill, I would say," Gaia remarked quietly as Erik sat on the edge of the bed.

"If you still want me to leave, I'll go," whispered Erik despairingly. It would destroy him to leave, but she was more important than his selfish desire to be forgiven.

"I don't know what I want, Erik," Gaia confided, not budging from the doorframe. "You terrified me. And not because of your face," she added quickly, afraid of another outburst.

"I know."

"If it happens again-"

"I would rather die than see it happen again," Erik promised her so passionately he nearly burst into tears. It was the truth; he would sooner end his own life than hers, so in love was he. Gaia frowned and approached her husband, knife still in her hand and arms folded tightly across her chest. She sat next to him on the bed.

"I'm not going to be one of those wives who's content being beaten and apologized to over and over again, Erik. I love you, but not that much," she told her husband firmly, and Erik wiped at his eyes with a shaking breath and a nod. "If it happens again, God willing I survive your rage a second time I won't hesitate in leaving."

"I wouldn't blame you if you left now," Erik told her softly, eyes still fixated on the floor.

Gaia nodded. "I don't think anyone would. But I've known you for three years, and we've been married half that time now. I want to believe that what happened isn't who you really are," she explained, looking to him. "It's not a side I've seen of you before, and I never want to see it again. Go make dinner."

Erik stood obediently and went to the kitchen to cook for his wife. He knew this was her way of giving him the means to earn her forgiveness. Erik would spend the rest of his life cooking, cleaning, and waiting on her every need if it meant she would love him at the end of the day, even if she never fully forgave him. He had nothing besides her to call his own, and was desperate to keep her close and to be loved.

They ate quietly, a small meal of pasta and meat. Both of them were too stressed by the events of the day to eat much, and neither spoke a word over dinner. They settled into their evening routine, trying to pretend nothing had happened. Erik must have read the same pages a hundred times before closing his book in frustration. Gaia looked up from her tinkering, pulling down her spectacles to watch him in his quiet frustration.

"What were you reading?" She ventured, quietly.

"_Canzoniere_, by Petrarch. I've read the same passage six times and still couldn't tell you what it says."

"If it's Canzoniere it must be about love," Gaia teased gently; Petrarch had written all of the poems in Canzoniere about love, both before and after his love's death. Erik grunted some in acknowledgement, but said nothing. "Maybe if you read it out loud it will help you retain it?" She offered.

"I don't want to disturb you."

"I won't be disturbed," she promised. "I was studying Petrarch when I left school after Mother died. I would like to hear it."

Reluctantly, Erik picked up the book of poetry again and began to read.

"**My luck is always late and slow to reach me,**

hope is uncertain, desire grows and increases,

so that I grieve with loss or anticipation,

and it is quicker than a tigress to depart.

Alas, snow will be black and hot,

the sea without waves, fish on the hills,

and the sun set where Tigris and Euphrates

issue together from their source,

before I can find peace in my mind,

or Love or my lady alter their ways,

who have joined in wrong against me.

And any sweetness follows such bitterness

that through disdain the taste is lost:

I will never know what's better from them."

Quietly Gaia stood and moved to her husband, sitting in his lap while he read poem after poem. She had always loved his voice, and thought often that she could listen to him talk for hours. Soon the stress of the day took her as she was lulled to sleep by the steady rise and fall of her husband's chest as he breathed and the quiet sound of his voice. Erik rested a hand timidly around her middle, loathe to touch her without her express permission after what happened but unable to escape the draw of holding her when she had put herself so close. He read she stirred some in his lap in an unconscious attempt to make herself more comfortable. Carefully he put the book aside and picked up his wife. She hadn't yet recovered all of the weight she lost during her last illness, but she was certainly recovering. Erik prayed silently that the events of the day wouldn't trigger another attack; there wasn't much of his wife left to be consumed.

Gently Erik laid Gaia in their bed where she curled into herself, lonely. Erik washed and joined her in bed before long, deciding to remain maskless for the night. He was both surprised and touched by how rapidly her body gravitated towards his. Erik had faced away from her, too ashamed to hold her while she slept, but she simply wouldn't have it. In moments Gaia was curled up beside her husband, nearly begging to be held. Erik gave in and wrapped her in his arms, something he never expected to do again after that morning.


	19. Chapter 19

"Erik, you're happy here aren't you?" Gaia asked him quietly one day, as he stared out the window. He stayed inside more sand more often these days, often spending hours watching the world go by from his favorite chair by the window.

The young man frowned some. "Of course I am, my love. Why do you ask?" He pried, unsure if he really wanted to know the answer.

Gaia chewed the inside of her lip, unsure if she really wanted to answer. "You seem so distant. Not neglectful," she added quickly worried he might think she was unhappy. "Just… thoughtful, with your head in the clouds. I'm worried you're getting bored with me…" she told him quietly, and Erik's frown deepened.

"Only a fool could get bored with you, Gaia," He promised, and it was true… though it notably did not address her concern. While Erik loved his wife dearly, he was beginning to grow restless. While he detested crowds and busy spaces, he craved the stimulation of the city. There were always things to do, new foods to try, work to be had. While Erik had received multiple job offers, anything outside the range of Modena or Bologna had been turned to in order to stay with his wife. When he had chosen the location for their quiet country home, he had imagined things differently. Back then, Gaia had not been ill. He could imagine leaving the house during the week and making love with her on the weekends, maybe paying to have her visit him for a day or two as he oversaw his latest masterpieces. He thought of moving up from houses to churches and museums, maybe even commuting all the way to Venice and working on one of the dozen opera houses in the sinking city, where music, true music had been conceived. How he longed to walk in the shadow of Montiverdi, hearing the long-gone madrigals and extant operas in his mind as he stood where they were first performed. He was so close to where music, real music had taken root, the birthplace of the Baroque!

But he could not leave. Erik was happy all right… but in the way that a caged bird is happy. He was safe here, well fed, loved, happy enough to sing even, yet unable to spread his wings and truly be free. He noticed Gaia watching him and snapped out of his reverie. "I have a surprise for you." He announced, before vanishing into their bedroom. She chuckled some at his boyish eagerness, which caused her to cough; the illness was back, though was mercifully taking its time rather than ravaging her as it had once before.

"When did you get me anything?" She asked; he hadn't left the property since she had gone with him to the market two days ago.

"I didn't purchase it, I made it," Erik announced from the bedroom, and when he returned she hardly recognized him.

He voluntarily was without his mask… but this was not the face she had seen the day Erik had fought Marco on the construction site. Erik had a nose. She was almost certain there hadn't been one before, or if there had been it was so shriveled and misshapen it appeared to be no nose at all. His shoulders slumped when all she could do was gape. "I am still grotesque." He said mournfully, ripping the false nose of his face in the same motion he turned to hide his disfigurement from her.

"No Erik! It's just… not you," Gaia explained quietly. "Put it on a again and let me have a better look?" She pried, rising from her seat and moving towards him as he fumbled with the strange false appendage, fixing it back onto his face. If she was horrified by the rest of his ugliness, she made no remark. This gave Erik some comfort; he had long suspected his nose was one of his more startling features, next to his rotten flesh, animalistic eyes and blue-green veins. He knew no amount of trickery would ever make him handsome, but perhaps there was a way to let her look on him without disgust.

Gaia inspected him so carefully Erik thought he might burst under her scrutiny. She pulled at his skin around the false nose, trying to discover its magic when it began to peel away and Erik quickly pressed it tight. "Be careful! It's only epoxy," He explained.

"It's so clever! I would hardly have recognized you if I saw you on the street, save for your height. But why-"

Erik answered before she even finished. "So you can go out with your husband and not feel the burn of all of Modena's eyes on the back of your head," he explained. "What do you think?" Gaia almost giggled at that; how he reminded of her a peacock sometimes! How did a man with such horrible disfigurements come to be so vain?

"I think it's a charming idea, Erik, but I don't see the sense in it. Let people look if they must. Besides, if you were more handsome you might find a prettier, healthier young lady to replace me with, and then what would I do?" She teased, making it clear to Erik she did not believe he would replace her even if he suddenly became as handsome as a Roman statue. Gaia had even told him more than once she preferred him as he was; he was certainly more generously endowed than the naked young men made of marble.

"Maybe it's for my own ego then," He countered, causing Gaia to frown, "and my comfort. That awful leather thing chaffs my face, and it gets hot in the summer. When I went into the woods-" that was what he called his outburst against her now, his trip into the woods, "-I felt so… free. Oh I was miserable, but still… at the same time I was so full of life! Dreadful, horrible, wondrous life. There was nothing I couldn't do, except travel back in time and stop myself from being such a monster to you."

"Then don't wear a mask, Erik. I have never asked you to, have I?" Erik was silent at that, but Gaia was not willing to let the matter drop. "Well, have I?"

"No, you have not," Erik admitted. "But if you could see-"

"I do see, Erik. I've seen it before, and I see it now. Just with a boyish attempt to be normal covering up a small part," she pointed out. "For such a brilliant man, can you really not see that I did not marry you for vanity?" Her face changed as another thought came across it. She opened her mouth as if to speak but changed her mind.

Erik pressed her. "Yes? What is it, Gaia?"

"Erik… why do you love me? Please don't dismiss it," she added quickly. "I'm honestly curious, not fishing for pretty words."

"What an odd question," The false-nose man remarked, moving to sit on the divan while Gaia brought him tea. "I love you for more reasons than words can say, I'm sure. You're beautiful, kind, earnest when it's appropriate but delightful when the mood strikes you. Honest, stubborn to a fault sometimes. Remarkably talented at everything you try your hand at it seems, curious, passionate… I've said something wrong," He stopped his list when he noticed the wrinkle in her brow.

"It's nothing, Erik. Don't mind me, I'm just in a mood is all," she dismissed, but Erik was not content.

"Please tell me what's wrong? What have I done, how can I fix it?" That always seemed to be Erik's worry these days. He was so terrified she would leave him after what he did to her, he was afraid any little misstep would send her running.

"…You listed beautiful first. Before the things… before the things that matter," Gaia muttered, but Erik heard and frowned deeply.

"Gaia I wasn't making a list in any particular order," He offered, but Gaia shook her head.

"That's why it bothers me. Oh, you mustn't think anything of it Erik. Like I said, it's only a mood," she promised.

Erik pressed deeper. "Why should it bother you that I listed beauty in a list with no order?"

"… Because it means, deep down, that is what comes first, Erik. You said the very first thing that came to your mind. I am beautiful, before I am any of those other, perfectly wonderful things you said about me. Please, can we just let the matter drop?" She urged, covering her mouth to suppress a half hearted cough before she moved into the kitchen to put on more water.

Erik did not follow her right away. Gaia had thought she was alone in the kitchen, holding herself quietly as she unnecessarily supervised the pot of water as it boiled. She had never thought of herself as pretty, though her father and sisters had always promised she was. She had always been too much of something in school to earn her much popularity; too tall, too large-breasted too young, too heady, too mature. But when she had left the school for girls at age fourteen to take care of her father, she became a magnet for male attention. Girls her age despised her for it; she was a terrible bore they said, why should she be the neighborhood beauty? But men in her neighborhood in Rome were middle class men. They worked hard day in and day out, and saw a good wage because of it. They could afford to be picky with their women, and Gaia was exactly what they wanted; a stunning beauty, talented cook, seamstress, and housekeeper. She had good hips for childbearing, and was proving herself to be a capable lady-of-the-house by taking care of her father so well all on her own.

Gaia sobbed quietly. How she wished she was ugly! How she wished she could walk through a crowd and not be noticed, or even be despised for her looks. How she hated being viewed as an object, a piece of meat for men like Marco to take whenever they pleased… and now Erik. Erik, an admittedly hideous, awful looking man… even he valued her looks before all else. How she wished to be loved for all of those other things and for her looks last, as purely and deeply as she loved him. She wanted to be loved in spite of her looks, not because of them.

She yelped before covering her hand with her mouth out of embarrassment when Erik's light touch pulled her from her thought. "Oh Erik, you startled me," she told him, wiping at her eyes furiously and turning to face him once her face was clean. "I didn't even hear you-" Gaia was silenced immediately by the view of Erik's unmasked face, missing even its prosthetic nose. For as long as she had been asking him to see it, she was still not entirely prepared for its awfulness… but she did not scream. She did not faint, or fall back, or attempt to run past him. Gaia flinched, and that was all. It was a move so slight Erik didn't even catch it, his eyes fixated on the floor like a berated child.

The young woman's brow furrowed deeply. Poor, sweet Erik. He had his moments… but on the whole he was so wonderful. Such a beautiful, beautiful man. In exchange for the beauty of his soul he had been cursed with such a wretched face, but it was not his fault. Gaia reached out carefully to stroke his cheek, making a mental note of where the knife block was just in case her touch threw him into another one of his rages. She wasn't sure she could use a knife against him even if it would save her life, but it made her far more confident knowing it was there.

Erik spoke so softly, Gaia could hardly tell his lips were moving. "I have always known you were beautiful, Gaia. I used to have… sick, fantastic dreams about you, when we first met. I was so embarrassed by my fantasies I could hardly look at you for months, I don't know if you remember."

Gaia flushed some at that admission. "I do, actually. I thought you hated me, that you were hiding something."

"I was, but nothing sinister. Only… childish and embarrassing. But Gaia… you've always been beautiful, but I have not always loved you. I lusted after you, to an extent… but not loved. Therefore I couldn't possibly love you because of your beauty," he reasoned, and Gaia was quiet. "You are without a doubt the most beautiful woman I have or will ever know. But I am certain that that is not why I love you."

Gaia was quiet for a long moment until the whistle from the teapot on the stove demanded her attention to keep from boiling over. She quickly turned and removed it from the heat, blowing out the small flame before turning back to him tearfully. In a careful movement, she cupped her husband's face in her hands to lift his gaze to hers. "You have no idea how it warms my heart to hear you say that, Husband. And for all the reasons I love you, I love you more for it," she promised, setting her lips on his firmly. It was so much nicer to kiss him without the mask! Normally the tough leather chaffed her face much as it was doing to Erik's, leaving her lips red and swollen after they kissed. Erik returned her kisses deeply, and before long was kissing her as they fell passionately into the bed, and Gaia was consumed with all the reasons she loved her husband.

He was a devoted and passionate husband and lover, he worshiped the ground she walked on. He was intelligent, witty, and so innocent with a deep, hidden darkness to him that both scared and thrilled Gaia. She preferred it came out in his dark musings of his past and not in violent rage, but somehow it made her feel even closer to him, knowing these dark secrets were known only to she and her husband. Gaia loved how he could make all of her problems melt away with a simple touch, or a laugh, or just by reading out loud to her in languages she would never understand. When they finally collapsed, exhausted in one another's arms, Gaia frowned some. Something felt strange… different than the other times they had made love. Not unpleasant, not at all. Just… different. She felt heavier, fuller and pleasantly lethargic than usual. She chalked it up to a pleasant sensation in the light of her recent illness, and smiled to him.

"I almost forgot. Guess what I found this morning," she pressed, and Erik chuckled some pleasantly. What a beautiful sound, she mused.

"I haven't the slightest clue."

Gaia pulled herself away from her husband's warm glow and moved to a box on the bookshelf, not bothering to dress. Erik watched her appreciatively as she moved, reaching up high before returning to the bed with a smile to show him her prize; the little mechanical ballerina he had given her when their friendship first bloomed. Erik smiled nostalgically, and stroked the little dancer's skirt. "I remember this. I can't believe you kept it."

"Of course I did. You made it for me," she smiled, and Erik kissed her deeply. Within minutes the little reminder of their budding affection was placed aside as they tangled once more in the sheets, wasting away the remainder of the afternoon in one another's arms.

* * *

**Author's Note: **Was inspired to write a particularly long chapter today, not too sure why. Ended up getting nothing productive done for school today besides just showing up for class, this is probably just my brain's way of making up for it. :P Spent all weekend doing homework, I feel like I deserve a break. A side note: Normally I judge the quality of a particular chapter by how many hits and visitors it gets, but this function is down (yet again), so any and all reviews would be nice until it starts working again. I feel more inclined to write when I know I have readers, especially when they leave such wonderful comments as DaFatGnome and Jasmine. :)


	20. Chapter 20

Much to the pair's relief, Gaia never really got ill that year. An out of place, deep chested cough here or there, but nothing more. Their second anniversary was vast approaching, and each could tell the other was preparing a surprise. Gaia was nearly as nervous as she had been on their wedding day, on the morning of their anniversary. It was a brisk autumn day, cool but with quiet wins and a pleasant amount of sun just like on the day of their wedding. Last year they had been forced in by rain the entire week (though neither of them minded, having planned on spending most of the day in bed anyway). Erik was awake before sunrise and drew the blinds in anticipation of the bright morning sun so his beautiful bride could sleep in while he prepared her breakfast in bed.

Late in the morning Gaia finally stirred, seeking out he husband's bony form in the bed and frowning when she found him absent. He was just walking in as she opened her eyes and stretched languidly. Erik allowed himself a brief moment of admiration for her form; she had put on a health weight again since her last illness, he was pleased to notice, though he knew she could be as skeletal as he was and he would love her none the less for it. "Good morning my love," Erik greeted her, his voice so pleasant it was nearly a song. Gaia smiled broadly, still not quite awake but adoring the sound of her husband's voice.

"Good morning, Husband. Happy Anniversary," she greeted back, reaching up to peck his lips when he leaned over her for a kiss. "You taste like oranges. You didn't eat without me did you?" Gaia scolded gently before sitting up and noticing the tray of breakfast along with a bouquet of flowers waiting for them on the trunk at the foot of the bed. "Oh Erik, you're a darling!"

Erik beamed at the praise, which made Gaia's smile even broader. Something about his smile was simply contagious when it was so pure and innocent, even if it wasn't pretty. "Eat up, we have a long day ahead of us. And with any luck a long night," He added coyly, causing Gaia to blush pleasantly.

"You've planned a day for us have you?"

"I have. I thought we might go for a walk in the woods while it's nice out, and then I have a present for you for this evening."

"Can I know what it is?" She asked curiously, ever a child when it came to the idea of gifts.

"I'll tell you as the time draws closer," Erik promised with a smile and another kiss, bringing the tray onto the bed and sitting beside Gaia to join her for breakfast. "If you could, I could use a favor today though."

Gaia kissed his bare cheek, quietly pleased that he was growing more and more comfortable being around her without it on, so long as they were in private. She certainly didn't begrudge him his privacy while they were out in town, but at home she preferred him as God made him. Somehow being without the mask made him seem more… human, almost. Not that he was ever anything else, but with a mask on Gaia felt like he was more readily able to distance himself from life. His withdrawn nature had vanished from whence it came, and it seemed by all appearances that her beloved was back to his usual self without a mask to hide behind whenever he pleased. "Of course, what is it you need?"

"I could use a haircut," he admitted. "I haven't been to the barber in far too long, not since I started wearing the nose out instead of a mask."

Gaia understood this; even with a false nose and a considerable amount of her flesh-tinted powder to hide his veins, Erik was leery of people coming to close to his face and god forbid seeing through his disguise; she knew that would terrify Erik as much as it would any poor soul who knocked the false nose askew and endure Erik's rage for it. "I've never cut hair before, but I suppose I could give it a try."

"I'm certain you'll do a better job than I ever could," Erik promised. "I tried it a month ago and it already looks too wretched to be seen out in."

"So we're going out!" Gaia exclaimed joyously. Her gift was a night out with her husband! She was thrilled at the prospect; they went to the market twice a week together and occasionally would sit at a quiet trattoria and lunch before making the journey home, but in their two years of marriage they had never had a night out like a normal couple.

"Look, I've gone and spoiled the surprise," Erik frowned, but Gaia kissed him.

"I'm glad you told me! I'll have to find that beautiful dress you bought me last year; I put it away so the moths wouldn't eat it in the winter. I hope it still fits," she mused before biting her tongue and saying a little prayer that Erik wouldn't think anything of her remark. He didn't seem to, and for that she was grateful; she didn't want to spoil the surprise she had for him.

"I'm sure that it will, you're almost back up in weight from last year," he praised, kissing her and handing her a glass of orange juice he had taken so much time to prepare.

"So where are we going?" Gaia pried after taking a long drink. "Should I wear walking shoes? Or a shawl?"

"Nice shoes and a shawl will do splendidly; we'll take a carriage, you won't need to worry about walking much. We're being picked up about one though, so we'll need to keep our stroll in the woods short."

Gaia raised a brow. "We're leaving at one for a night out?"

Erik teased her gently. "I never said a night out, did I?"

"No, but one is too late for a lunch in town," Gaia pointed out, and Erik was trumped. "Where are we going?" She pried, trying to think of all the places they could get to by dinner time if they left at one. "We're going to Venice!"

"You are an absolutely insufferable woman sometimes, do you know that?" Erik accused, upset she was growing so adept at guessing his surprises.

"Yes. But I am your insufferable woman, which is why you don't mind," She smiled, kissing her husband and putting the tray of food back off the bed to indicate there were other activities to be had before their walk.

It was noon when they returned to the house and Gaia settled down to cut Erik's hair. He sat on a dining room chair she had brought into the large kitchen, tipping it back over the sink. She wasn't sure if men's hair needed to be wetted like hers did when she had it cut. Erik's was especially thin, she felt she probably could have cut it dry but she dared not take any chances. She wetted and washed Erik's hair, before suddenly realizing just how much power she had over him in that moment. Erik, who was normally so powerful yet with a deeply ingrained distrust of the human race, was sitting in a chair balanced on its back legs with his head over the kitchen sink, neck completely exposed. If this wasn't a sign of how wholly he trusted her, Gaia couldn't think of what was. It was a Samson and Delilah moment, she realized quietly, only Gaia had no intent to ever break her husband's faith in her.

A fleeting urge to bend that trust in a rather pleasant way by mounting him then crossed and left her mind. There would be plenty of that later tonight, she thought to herself with a pleased smile. How she loved the way Erik touched her, as if every time they made love she was his willing puppet on a string, a beloved sculpture all his own. She quickly pulled herself out of her reverie to snip away at her husband's hair, suddenly very focused on the task at hand.

She dried his hair when she was through, and went to fetch her hand mirror from the bedroom, nervously. "How did I do?"

Erik inspected her handiwork and nodded. "Certainly better than I did myself," he praised, and Gaia pecked his lips happily. "Go get dressed, the carriage might show up at any minute."

Much to Gaia's relief, she was able to fit into the stunning royal blue gown Erik had given her for their anniversary the previous year. With nowhere to wear it, she had tucked it away and nearly forgotten about it, and was thrilled for an excuse to show it off. It was a work of art in itself, and made her feel as beautiful just by wearing it as Erik made her feel. A knock came at the door and Erik called for her to hurry or they might be late. Gaia finished lacing the bodice, wishing she were in a state to wear a corset; she felt so exposed without one! When finally she made her way into the living room, Erik was dressed in his finest suit, the one they had been married in she realized, eliciting a smile. This evening Erik opted for the strange false nose instead of a mask, though she was certain he was hiding one somewhere in case the nose decided to give him trouble.

Erik could not find the words to describe his wife's beauty, a first. He mused there simply must not have been words invented yet to describe her. "Well? What are we waiting for?" Gaia urged, lacing their fingers and hurrying with him out the door.

The evening was wonderful. They had gone to see a symphony at one of the multiple opera houses in Venice, where Erik's favorite composers were being showcased. The music was stunning, like nothing Gaia had ever heard; she had only been exposed to people playing on or at most two instruments at a time in a private home, never something like this. Sound seem to fill the entire space, so beautiful that Gaia nearly wept twice even though there was no libretto. It was simply music for hours. Erik seemed in near ecstasy at several of the pieces; clearly if this was not entirely new to him, it was the first he had heard such music in ages. They left the concert hall just in time to make dinner at a quiet little restaurant off the main streets.

"Bach was simply a genius!" Erik praised. "I've seen the scores, I've copied them hundreds of times over perhaps, but never in my life could I have imagined it would be that beautiful. It is wonderful in my head, but to hear it, actually hear it! I can now die a happy man."

"I am glad, but I certainly hope you don't die on me any time soon," Gaia remarked with a smile. "It really was wonderful, Erik. I'm so glad we came."

"As am I," Erik promised, moving to pour her wine until she waved her hand for him to stop.

"Only a small glass for me tonight, Love," she smiled, somewhat nervously. "Which reminds me. Have you noticed anything… different?" Gaia wasn't sure if her surprise was obvious or not. He hadn't commented on her lack of a corset the past month, and to be fair the weight gain could be explained in other ways…

Erik studied her for a moment before frowning pensively. "I'm afraid not," he admitted. "Should I? I will feel horrible if I should."

Gaia's nerves made her shiver briefly in the cool night air before she finally decided to come out with it. "What do you think about having a baby?"

Erik was quiet for so long Gaia's heart dropped to the pit of her stomach. "Erik?"

"I heard you," he answered gruffly, causing his wife to frown. "I think… I don't know what to think. Certainly I imagined we might have children, but so soon?"

"So soon? We've been married for two years, and we can hardly stand to keep our hands off each other," she reasoned quietly. "I was beginning to think I wouldn't ever get pregnant. Not that I was trying mind you," Gaia added quickly, worried Erik might think she was attempting to try something behind his back. "And Erik… Erik with my illness it could be this is the _only_ time to have a baby. Maybe I'll be lucky like Papa and live until I'm gray, but only God knows. Maybe we'll have the chance to have a dozen children… but there's also a chance this could be our only one. Please be excited, just a little?" She asked of him, tearfully. Erik moved from his chair to crouch next to her, pulling her head onto his shoulder to dry her tears.

"Gaia, I am going to make sure you live to be as old as I do," he swore. "And I'm not… excited. Not yet. I'm nervous, and fearful, but you must be too! How can you not be afraid that… that…"

Gaia frowned against his shoulder. "That the baby will look like you?" She offered, and Erik nodded quietly. "Erik, I would love our child completely whether he has your face or not. It's so… romantic, isn't it? A part of you and a part of me inside one living thing? Who cares if it takes your face? You've done wonderfully for yourself, even if you don't think so. You found me, didn't you?" Erik nodded, quietly, not having the energy to argue at the moment; it was so, so easy for her to say! But the thought of any woman holding up such a monstrous face as his to feed from her breast… the thought even made him sick!

They ate the rest of their meal quietly before retiring to an intimate hotel, not unlike the one in Rome where they spent their wedding night. It was too late to return to the comfort of their on beds, and besides, the thrill of spending a night in someone else's sheets was rather thrilling. Before long both of them had abandoned the uncomfortable conversation from before. It had not gone how Gaia would have hoped… but it had not been completely disastrously like she feared it might. She took that as a small triumph for now, moaning some as her husband nipped and suckled at her neck with firey lips. He froze just when she was aching for him most, and Gaia frowned deeply.

"Erik what's wrong?" She pried, littering his face with kisses and writing in anxious agony beneath him.

"I… it won't hurt the baby will it?" He asked quietly, and Gaia nearly burst into laughter. So he wasn't feeling so negative towards the thing as she thought! He was actually worried he might hurt it by entering her.

"Of course not, Husband! I already asked the doctor about it, he says the baby is up here, not down there," she gestured to her lower belly to reassure him, kissing him deeply, urging him to continue and put an end to her misery. Still leery, he finally gave into his urges and forgot completely about the baby while his mind swam with images of Gaia.


	21. Chapter 21

The pregnancy seemed to pass far too quickly for Erik, but not fast enough for his wife. She spent all of the time she wasn't caring for her husband preparing for the baby, anything to keep her mind of the aches and pains of pregnancy. She never did get the morning sickness her sisters had told her about, but once she started showing her body began to ache wildly. She had been developing little aches and pains ever since her father's death, but they had always been something she could ignore until recently.

"Do you think it's normal for my back to hurt so much?" Gaia asked her husband one morning late into her pregnancy. She guessed she was only two or three weeks away from giving birth by now, and was busy stitching a quilt for the baby on the floor.

"I'm sure it is, you're carrying an awful lot of weight," Erik promised, though he couldn't hide his upset that his child was being so hard on her. She rarely complained, but it was painfully clear she was struggling. "Maybe if you sat up on the sofa you would feel better?"

"That's a thought," she conceded before trying to pull herself to her feet. Just as she was about to fall back onto her rear, Erik caught her by the wrist and pulled her effortlessly to her feet. Gaia smiled and leaned over her belly to kiss him. "My big, strong husband to the rescue once more," she praised, playfully. "Thank you."

Erik gave a little mocking bow which to his delight made Gaia laugh. He picked up her sewing to bring it to her as she sat on the sofa, putting a pillow behind her back to help support her weight. "How is that?"

"Much better, thank you Love," Gaia smiled, pecking her husband's lips before returning to her stitching. "I need to start making clothes soon."

"Do you think it's going to be a boy or a girl? I've heard sometimes women have a knack for guessing," he pried, honestly curious. He hadn't much liked the idea of having a child at first, not while they were so young and robust. Erik had figured they would have two or three more years before they would have children, time to enjoy each other's company thoroughly before welcoming in a new member to their family. But the baby was on its way in spite of his plans, and he was intent to make the best of it. In his heart he hoped, maybe even quietly prayed a happy, welcoming home would mean their child would not be cursed with Erik's face.

Gaia was quiet for a moment, stroking the hard drum of her belly thoughtfully until there was a tiny kick from the other side of her flesh, causing her to smile. "A boy, I think. I'm almost certain, actually. Though now I'll feel like a real fool if it's a girl."

"What makes you so sure?"

"Oh, I don't know really. Just a feeling. Like you said, it feels like just a knack, women's intuition," she smiled. "Besides, he's already a bit like you I've noticed."

Erik raised a brow at her, not hidden by a mask. "Oh? And how is he like me? His fascination with your breasts won't come for another three weeks or so," he teased, causing Gaia to smack his leg teasingly.

"I certainly hope he has a different fascination with them then you do, you cad!" she scolded half-heartedly. "He loves music, and poetry. It's adorable, really; whenever I sit and listen to you play the piano or read, he moves around a bit, almost like he's trying to get comfortable, and then is perfectly still the rest of the time."

"That makes him more like you than like me," Erik pointed out, for she had a habit of seeking him out whenever he played the piano or read, bundling up in preparation of the enchantment that was to come. Erik's voice was simply remarkable. She had read Arabian Nights before in school, but when Erik read it she found herself on the edge of her seat for three straight hours, never really knowing where the time had gone. When he sang some Opera or madrigal or another, even if it was in a language Gaia had never learned she somehow understood every phrase. When he sang of sadness and cruelty, she wept. When he sang of love her breasts ached to be touched. When he sang masses she felt closer to God than she ever had attending a sermon. Even when Erik did not sing and only played, Gaia could still feel these as emotions powerfully as if there were words attached.

She shook her head gently. "It's different somehow. More like he's studying you than just enjoying it like I do," she was quiet for a moment, trying to find the words to describe it but coming short. "I really can't explain it. But I feel as if he's very bright, and he certainly didn't get that from me."

"You are brighter than nearly any woman I've met, that is part of what I love about you," Erik promised with a kiss, and Gaia couldn't help but raise her brow some.

"'Nearly any woman'? Who else do you know brighter than me?" She pried, a little jealous; she didn't fancy herself intelligent, especially with how early she left school, but she was bright enough, and had certainly retained more of her schooling than any of her sisters or the twits on her street.

Erik laughed gently. "Nobody you need to be jealous of. There was this old medicine woman I used to study under, when I traveled with the gypsies. She couldn't read or write, but she knew the human anatomy and how to remedy its ails better than any physician I've met before or since. Really a remarkable woman."

Gaia felt foolish for having been jealous, and drew the subject away from her jealous remark. "I never knew you studied medicine."

"She was my first master, before your father," Erik explained. "Though I ran from the gypsies before I could finish learning her art. I don't know that I ever would have learned everything she knew, even if I stayed until she died."

"…Do you know anything to make birthing not so painful?" Gaia ventured nervously, and Erik frowned.

"I don't know of any numbing agent that I would trust giving you, no. Are you nervous, Gaia?"

She nodded but didn't speak. Erik quietly pulled her stitching from her hands and urged her to lay on his lap so he could stroke her hair. "I'm nervous too," he admitted quietly. "I hear so many horrible things about childbirth, I can't deny one of my biggest fears about the baby is losing you in the process. Especially since you're ill…"

"I had a nightmare about it the other night," she confessed, resting her head on his lap and playing with one of the buttons on his vest absently. "Marco was in it, delivering the baby. I'm not sure why… but the baby came out and it hurt so much I fainted and never woke up…"

Erik leaned over her and kissed her gently. "Perhaps it is your mind associating him with the uncontrollable," Erik suggested, playing with her hair. "But I didn't let him get to you, and if I can help it I won't let anything happen to you when the baby comes. I swear."

Gaia sighed some, moderately contented by this promise before sitting up clumsily from his lap. "Where are you going?" He asked as Gaia made her slow way away from the sofa.

"To the bathroom, I'll be back in a moment," she promised, and Erik couldn't help but raise a brow in amusion.

"Again?"

"Your son keeps kicking my bladder," she told him, smiling over her shoulder to him to let him know she was being playful. The amusion left her face as it contorted suddenly into a sharp wince. "Owowowow!"

Erik was on his feet in an instant, moving to her. "What is it? Your back?"

"No, the baby," she hissed through gritted teeth before furrowing her brow some. "Erik, I think I'm going into labor."

"Nonsense. We did the math, you're not due for half a month or more."

"The math was wrong, Erik. Maybe that feeling I had was off by a few weeks, it's not like we weren't having sex almost every night," she pointed out, straightening out now as the pain was easing up. "My sisters warned me about this. I've had other signs too. Blood when I go to the bathroom, the long boughts of back pain…"

"Why didn't you tell me?" Erik demanded, nervously; he was confident in his math, and Gaia's belly had been growing according to his predictions.

"Because those signs come sometimes weeks before the baby is born, I never thoug-ow!" She groaned, clutching her belly again. When the pain eased, Gaia noticed a wetness between her legs and blushed deeply. "Oh, damn," she cursed, tears of embarrassment welling in her eyes. "I've wet myself…"

"…I don't think you wet yourself, My Love," Erik told her, urging her back to the sofa. "I think the water sack is broken."

"The what?"

"The bag the baby is kept in has water in it, it tears and lets out the water so the baby can be born," Erik explained quickly, helping her back onto the sofa before moving to grab his cloak.

"Erik? Erik where are you going? Erik don't leave!" Gaia begged, trying to get off the sofa but finding it difficult with the bulge of her belly in the way. Erik moved back to her and kissed her soundly before putting the black leather mask on his face, wasting no time with the false nose today.

"I won't be gone long, I'm only taking one of the horses to fetch the midwife," he explained. "I need to go now before your pains get any worse. Don't get up," he commanded so firmly Gaia felt like she had no choice but to obey. She stopped struggling as Erik left, sobbing quietly in fear instead. She had been so impatient for the baby to be born only minutes before, why was it she was suddenly so terrified?

It was early spring, and the roads to Modena were crowded with merchants. A ride that should have taken only an hour took two, and to Erik's disappointment the midwife was not to be found. No small wonder; they had told the woman the baby was due in the next two to three weeks! Erik must have frightened half of Modena out of its wits, asking young women if they knew where he might find a midwife. He looked frantically for nearly an hour, knocking on door after door only to be told the woman was out on business, or on vacation, or dead. Finally though Erik found a midwife in her home, and while she was reluctant to deliver a child for a mother she had not met, Erik offered her such an extensive sum of money she had no choice but to take the job.

Four hours after Erik left for Modena he returned, bursting into the house so suddenly Gaia yelped from where she stood leaning against the mantle of the fireplace. "Dear God Erik, you scared me-"

"What are you doing up, Gaia?" He demanded. "I told you to stay put!"

"Signore, please be gentle with her. It's her first child, the baby won't come for quiet some time. It's good for her to walk, it will help move the baby," explained the midwife, and Gaia gave her husband a little "so there" glare. Erik pursed his lips and sat while the midwife went to work. "How long have you been having the pains, Signora Renard?"

"Signora…" Gaia shook off the strange name, figuring Erik must have told the woman something to content her enough to come with him. This was not the same midwife they had chosen early in the pregnancy, and Gaia was a little surprised any woman had agreed to come with him; he was rather intimidating, especially with his mask on. "About four or five hours? I haven't been checking the clock."

"Get in bed and let me have a look at you," the woman commanded, and Gaia waddled into the bedroom to lay down, feeling like this was an awful invasion of her privacy. Erik tried to follow, but was quickly stopped by the midwife.

He gritted his teeth sharply at being ordered around in his own house. "I've seen between her legs more often than you have," he snapped at the woman, who brushed off his comment.

"If you want my help, you'll do as I say. It's terribly inappropriate for a man to watch."

"It's also terribly inappropriate to fuck in the nude, which is how she came to be in this condition in the first place," Erik pointed out, and Gaia gave him a little glare; their bedroom matters were not any of this woman's business.

"Please Signora, I'd feel better if my husband were with me…" Gaia tried, but the woman shook her head.

"He can join you when I'm through having a look at you, until the baby comes. Open your legs, Signora," the woman commanded, finally succeeding in shooing Erik from the room. Gaia gave him an apologetic look as he left bitterly, just before the door closed behind him. Doing as she was told, the midwife gave her a brief once-over before closing Gaia's legs abruptly and patting her knees. "I have a feeling it's going to be a long night, Signora."


	22. Chapter 22

If Erik weren't so gravely concerned, he would have found it terribly amusing how beautiful the Italian language was even as Gaia displayed the most wretched portions of her vocabulary. After being repeatedly chased out by the midwife, Erik confined himself to the study to sit at the piano, plucking away gently at the keys, too distracted by the sound of his wife's screams and wild cursing from the room just upstairs to play anything of substance. For nearly twenty hours now, Gaia had been in labor. Erik's nerves wouldn't allow him to sleep even during the breaks in Gaia's fussing. He kept waiting, distracting himself as well as he could but still on edge, desperate for the event to be over.

It was all Gaia could do not to damn her husband to hell for putting her in this condition. She spewed every nasty phrase she knew violently at the midwife, who seemed shocked by such a tongue on a well-to-do young woman; normally those sorts of insults were thrown out by sailors' wives, not the wives of wealthy young architects. After hours upon hours of pushing and so much pain Gaia was sure she would faint, there was a sudden release of the pressure on her pelvis, and a yelp of fear from the midwife before the room became eerily quiet. The older woman crossed herself and backed away from the child, not daring to touch it; this… thing could not be the work of God.

Gaia breathed heavily from the bed, light headed from pain and lack of food or sleep but sharply aware of the sudden change in the woman. She sat up against her pillows, and immediately saw what had put the woman on edge; there at the foot of her and Erik's bed was a bloody, writhing pink mass of flesh with Death's face, gaping as if for breath but not uttering a single cry. In weak but driven by panicked instinct, Gaia grabbed her son and patted him on the back in a desperate attempt to get breath in his lungs. "What do I do?" She demanded of the woman, crying. "Why won't he cry? Please, tell me!"

The sudden quiet followed by shouting from upstairs sent Erik hurtling up the steps two at a time, bursting into the room. He was met with the sight of the midwife cowering against a wall, staring shocked at the pink mass in Gaia's arms. Tears were streaming down Gaia's cheeks, "Erik I can't get him to breathe, how does he breathe?" Quickly Erik pulled the boy from Gaia's hands by the foot and gave the newborn a firm slap on the rear. In a moment the child coughed and cried, a surprisingly sweet, melodic sound, much more tolerable than the screams of Gypsy newborns Erik had heard once or twice in his youth. Gaia sobbed gratefully and reached out to take the boy from her husband, who deposited the pink mass of flesh into his wife's waiting arms.

Erik turned upon the woman in a frightening rage. "What the hell is wrong with you, Signora? Your job is to see to my wife and the baby, not stand there like a slack jawed idiot!" The woman covered her mouth in fright, suddenly realizing why the man must wear a mask, mind filled with visions of a larger skull like the one on the newborn she had just delivered.

"His face, Signore… his face…" was all she could muster, quickly pushing past the man to run down the stairs without collecting the second half of her payment Erik had promised her upon the safety of his wife and child.

In his haste to get the child to breathe Erik had not seen the boy's face, only his backside. He whirled upon Gaia, who was sobbing quietly on the bed. Erik stood frozen as he watched his wife gently clean the boy with the blanket the midwife had kept at the foot of the bed to catch the baby. He could only catch a glimpse of the boy's deformities from where he stood; thin, nearly translucent skin about the face, with a mop of dark hair unnaturally hollow cheeks for a newborn and deep set eyes. Gaia cradled the baby carefully, almost as if she were afraid she would break him. Gently she placed a kiss on his ugly little forehead. "Oh my poor, sweet baby boy…"

Erik came to the quiet realization that Gaia wept from grief, not from fear or disgust. He watched in fascination as she drew the child to her breast and the writhing newborn became quiet and still, suckling hungrily. Gaia's sweat-drenched brow furrowed at the sensation, and she watched her child for a moment before looking to her husband tearfully. "Erik… I'm so sorry," she sobbed. "so, so sorry…"

Finally Erik found his legs and moved into bed to embrace his wife as tight as he dared with their child between them. Gaia wept into his neck, utterly exhausted by past day. "I'm the one who should be sorry. Any child of yours should have been perfect," Erik frowned under the weight of his guilt; the newborn certainly had not spontaneously developed such horrible deformities, not when they so neatly matched his own. What made him feel worse still was that in spite of his guilt, Erik felt and odd mix of jealousy for the boy, and immense love for his wife.

Not once had his mother drawn him to her breast. Not once had she wept for his fate and not her own. She had never been able to love him as immensely as Gaia already loved her son, in the eight years that Erik lived under his mother's roof. For that reason, Erik resented the boy. He shared Erik's deformities, but would never face the same level of stress Erik had been put through since birth because of them. At the same time, Erik had never been more in love with his wife than when she drew the boy to her breast, weeping out of relief for his life and grief for his future. She was a singularly remarkable woman, Erik knew, and he would be damned if he let any harm come to her, God's will or not. He'd sooner sell his soul to the Devil than see such a remarkable woman fade away, he decided quietly.

Gaia took a shaky breath once she was too tired to cry anymore. Erik brought her a fresh blanket to wrap their son in once he seemed finished suckling. The new mother wrapped her son gently, watching as his thin little eyelids drooped closed. The poor child had no idea what a difficult life he had in front of him, if Erik's was anything to show for it. Gaia loved her husband dearly, but she knew his face was the root of the things she didn't love about him, like the ease with which he talked about killing, or his sudden mood swings. Erik had told her much of his past, and all of the horrible parts (which was most of it) came as a result of his ugliness. She had never once given any thought to Erik's fear that their child would look like him; she had figured his face was simply a fluke, a fear that could be easily dismissed based on logic; his parents had been attractive, he had mentioned once, but Erik was certainly not attractive in the vain sense. Why should there be any thought that his face could be given to a child, if he didn't receive it from his parents?

Clearly, her logic was flawed. Gaia stroked the boy's thin little cheek moving to a rocking chair to allow Erik to change the bedding. She couldn't take her eyes off of the boy… she felt wretched, imagining him as she had seen in her dreams, with full cheeks and large, bright eyes. In her mind their son had been a perfect cherub, as picturesque as any Renaissance painting there ever was. What had she or Erik done that had been so wretched as to curse their son? They had waited until marriage to have sex, they were married by a proper priest, albeit not in a church. Was that it perhaps? Or perhaps their lovemaking as God made them, and not mostly covered by clothes? Yes, perhaps lust was their crime…

Erik helped Gaia back into bed, making sure her weak legs wouldn't give in while she was holding the baby. He interrupted her quiet thoughts, climbing into bed next to her. "You were right about his gender," he offered quietly, trying to ease her upset.

"I was. Woman's intuition I guess," Gaia remarked quietly, looking to her husband. "We need to name him. We should find a priest…"

Erik shook his head, firmly. "No priests. We don't need to christen him under any church," he stated firmly, but made no remark as to a name; he had thought to name the boy Giovanni after their father, but it seemed so inappropriate now.

"What about a good Roman name?" Gaia suggested, "Adrian, perhaps? Julian? Or Antony? Maybe Ignatius…"

"I do like Adrian. And it's not unfitting; we're not terribly far from the Adriatic," Erik told her, kissing her temple.

Gaia smiled down to her son as he slept. "Adrian then. That reminds me… why did that woman call me Renard? I've never heard of such a name."

"She refused to go with a man in a mask who wouldn't offer his full name, so I gave her my mother's name. She must have assumed you had taken it as your married name," he explained. "I don't think we should give it to our son, if that is what you're considering.

"Well, wouldn't his life be just a little easier I he had a surname. It would make him seem more… more…" Gaia trailed off at a loss for words.

"Human," Erik finished for her, and she frowned realizing that was the word she had in fact been looking for. "Why don't we let him decide when he's older, hm?" Gaia nodded at that, finding it a suitable compromise. Gently Erik kissed his wife's temple again, pulling her into his arms. Gaia moved into them, comforted by the contact. She frowned some at the uneven feel of the scar on her husband's shoulder against her back.

"His life isn't going to be like mine," he told his wife, barely more than a whisper. "He's already loved more than I ever was."

Gaia frowned and turned her head to meet her husband's lips. "More loved than you were," she corrected firmly. "I can't help but worry though… Papà was such an extraordinary man, without him you might never have had a chance. How many more men like Papà can there be to give him a chance?"

"I will teach him everything I know, and if he must he will be able to make his own chances," Erik promised. "His life won't be easy, but he will be loved. That's all that matters for now."

* * *

**Author's Note:** To clarify, the false nose I mentioned a few chapters ago is the result of listening to Leroux's Phantom on tape while rewriting my class notes the other day. I don't remember whether or not it was mentioned in Kay's version of events or not, but a friend of mine who reads was confused so I figured I'd clarify for the masses.


	23. Chapter 23

Gaia cried the day her husband made baby Adrian his first mask. She had not been able to bring herself to do it, but she understood the necessity; she may have loved the boy in spite of his face, but the world outside the vineyard would not. Erik was going to begin working on turning the decrepit winery into a functioning bed and breakfast, which meant Gaia would have to go start going to the markets in Modena on her own. She couldn't possibly leave the boy behind even if she wanted to, not while he was so young. In order to take the baby out though, he needed to be masked whether Gaia liked the idea or not.

At a year old, Adrian was making truly stunning progress; he had been walking for four months, and speaking for two months. Erik had somehow even managed to teach the boy to read; words his little mouth wasn't yet developed enough to form he could gesture when he saw them on paper. He would often stand next to his father on the piano bench, watching Erik's fingers caress the keys. Gaia would stand in the doorframe for minutes watching them before either even realized she was there.

There was one thing that concerned Gaia about the boy… around her, he was a perfectly normal, healthy baby boy. They had bonded immediately, and would spend hours laughing and singing, smiling and playing together. But with Erik… with Erik the boy was different. Eerily adult for a child so incredibly young. The boy had grown quickly from his tiny newborn frame into the frame of a normal sized child, and then some Gaia was sure. This didn't surprise her much; she had developed at a young age, and was always one of the tallest girls in her class, and Erik was certainly one of the tallest men Gaia had ever met. But was physically developing young supposed to come with such seriousness?

Erik didn't help matters. Gaia knew Erik loved his son, but there was a strange sort of tension between them this past year. It was almost as if Erik was jealous of the attention Gaia paid to Adrian. She wasn't sure why her husband would feel this way; her sisters had warned her that husbands sometimes get jealous, but Gaia loved her husband more than her sisters loved theirs she knew, and she made a point to spend just as much time alone with Erik as she did with Adrian. Almost as soon as she had recovered from her pregnancy they had resumed their eager lovemaking.

Gaia couldn't have known the nature of Erik's jealousy, and if Erik had his way she would never know. Watching them laugh and play should not have upset him as much as it did, and he knew this. Whenever Gaia caught her husband watching them play, she would invite him to join them and Erik would politely decline to work on some project or another; the last thing Erik wanted was to develop some bizarre oedipal complex regarding his wife. Erik made very sure to let mother and son have all the time they needed; as jealous as he was of the rich childhood Adrian was experiencing, Erik loved the boy too much to begrudge him a proper mother. It was strange how much Adrian seemed to sense his father's unease, and how uniquely he responded to it. Around Gaia he was a perfectly normal little boy, but it seemed to Erik as if he was doing his best to put his father at ease whenever they were alone by acting as unlike a little boy as possible. The child was curious and insightful almost to a fault, already having a massive vocabulary and a tendency to become transfixed on Erik as he played the piano or tinkered with some mechanical device or another.

In spite of distancing himself from his son, Erik did love the boy and was concerned about his first day in the city. "If you're so worried why don't you come with us?" Gaia suggested, walking outside after Erik.

"Because the barometer's dropping, and if I don't get the holes in the roof of the winery fix all the wood I laid out yesterday will rot when the storm hits," Erik explained, walking with his wife across the road to where the couple kept two horses in the large pasture beyond. The two beasts trotted over at the sight of the masked man eagerly; Gaia had always wondered how Erik managed to call them over without saying a word. Slipping into the stable, Erik put away the larger of the horses and saddled the smaller, tamer of the two. "Make sure you remember to pick up the book I ordered last month, it should be in by now,"

"I will, Husband," she promised, adjusting Adrian on her hip.

"Are you sure you're going to be all right?" On top of how people would react to her carrying a masked infant, Erik was concerned she might have trouble with the horse; the beast was used to traveling with her companion, and Erik was unsure of how reliable she might be alone.

"Well I don't really have a choice, do I?" Gaia pointed out. "Even if I could wait to get a new outfit for Adrian, we need food and more hay, and you need that wood order-"

"I know, I know. Just promise me you'll stay on the road?"

Gaia laughed some, gently. "It's the only way into Modena I know, why would I deviate?"

"Because I know you, and you're hard headed enough to go looking for a shortcut," Erik pointed out, and Gaia pouted.

"Not with Adrian," she promised. Just as she was getting ready to mount, hoping Erik had forgotten to make the boy a mask, Erik pulled something small and black from his coat. Gaia frowned deeply and kissed the top of her son's head, breathing in his sweet scent. A year old and already his childhood was about to come to a crashing halt.

"Adrian, it's very important that you not take this off," Erik told his son firmly, and the boy wrinkled his brow.

"What is it?" It never ceased to amaze Gaia how clear the boy's words were, even at a year old.

"It's a mask, like the one I'm wearing now."

The boy's brow furrowed in confusion; he had very rarely seen his father wear the mask, and while he realized his father and mother were different he never understood its purpose; in his little world, it was simply another way men were different than women.

"Erik do we really-"

"Yes," stated Erik firmly, causing Gaia to take a shaky breath and wipe at her eyes with a quiet nod.

"Why not Mama?" The boy asked from confusion, as Erik tied the little black mask around the boy's face, adjusting it so he could still see properly.

"Your mother doesn't need one to protect her, if you wear one," Erik told the boy. "Will you protect her for me while you to into town?"

The boy nodded eagerly, leaping at the chance to please his father. Absently he pulled at the mask before Erik guided his hand away, gently. "I know it feels strange, but you mustn't take it off. Promise me you won't fuss with it."

"Yes, Papa."

Erik could tell Adrian was still confused, and after a bit of hesitation decided to use the lie his mother had used on him so many years ago. "Did your mother ever tell you I was a magician?"

Adrian smiled broadly, new teeth showing brilliantly behind malformed lips. "Yes!"

"Well, I've put a spell on the mask, for protection. As long as you wear it, no harm can come to you or your mother. Do you understand, Adrian?" The boy nodded his understanding, and in a rare display of affection, Erik kissed the black mop of hair on the boy's head. "Very good," he praised before kissing his wife.

"Stay safe. I'll be worrying about you until you come home."

"You needn't worry, Erik. We'll be back in time to start dinner and even have some wine before bed," she smiled reassuringly.

True to her word, Gaia was back from Modena in three hours, just short of the length of their average trip. From the roof of the winery Erik spotted his little family returning, and came down to help Gaia with the horse. "You made good time," he praised, taking the reins and patting the horse's muzzle fondly.

"We kept the trip brief," Gaia told him curtly, dismounting and moving immediately inside with Adrian, not even bothering to wait for Erik to accompany them. It was clear something was very, very wrong. As soon as the mare was taken care of, Erik moved inside the house, taking his mask off and hanging it up with his coat. Gaia was in the kitchen standing over a pot with Adrian nowhere to be seen.

Erik moved behind his wife, frowning deeply when her shoulder shake with a sob. "Gaia, tell me what happened?"

Gaia turned away from the pot and moved into her husband's waiting arms, burying her face in his chest. She stayed there for a long moment, breathing him in before speaking. "They were so horrible, Erik. Just wretched. They called me a monster for putting a mask on him… I'm a horrible, horrible mother, Erik."

Erik hushed her, turning up her chin to kiss her soundly. "You are far from a horrible mother, My Love. You are by far the best mother I've seen. Where is Adrian?"

"I put him down for a nap before dinner. God, I hope he doesn't understand… why can't we have just a few more years? He's only a baby…"

"I'm sorry, Gaia. I shouldn't have sent you two out," he frowned, knowing in his heart Adrian probably suspected something was wrong. Erik had begun questioning his differences from society not much older than his son was now.

"Were the people in France so horrible to you and your mother?" Gaia asked quietly, holding her husband's lean, sturdy frame.

"…my mother never dared take me into the village. She barred my windows and locked the doors to make sure I wouldn't leave. I only ever saw the village at night, when I snuck out."

At this admission, Gaia buried her face deeper into her husband's chest. What a horrible thought, locking up a child inside the house as if it were a prison! This may have been the first time Gaia had taken Adrian into the city, but they had been outside before, enjoying horseback rides and walks in the shallow areas of the forest. Children needed the outdoors, especially little boys! Adrian adored watching the birds, playing with the cat that had taken up residence in the horse stable, inspecting bugs in the grass, he had been fascinated by the light snowfall they had gotten that winter which never stuck to the ground but somehow had caught the boy's attention nonetheless. To be kept locked up like a criminal as a small child was cruelty at its finest. "I'm sorry Erik, I didn't realize-"

"It's all right, Gaia," Erik promised quietly. "But that is how I know you are not a bad mother; your parenting skills far surpass those of the woman I was 'raised' by." Erik spoke the word 'raised' as if it were poison on his tongue. Gaia frowned but nodded, kissing her husband before turning to salt the water she had been boiling. Erik reached around her to grab her wrist, pulling her to face him once again with something of a smile on his face as he kissed her.

"Erik," Gaia complained half heartedly. "I have dinner to make…"

"I'm not all that hungry, are you?"

"Well, no actually…" she admitted. "But Adrian-"

"Doesn't eat what we do anyway," Erik pointed out. "And besides, he's napping. What do you say we have that wine you were tempting me with earlier, hm?"

Gaia smirked some against his vest. "I actually bought a new bottle while I was in town," she admitted. "I'll bet it's better than the crap we bottled a few years back."

"It really is crap, isn't it?" Erik admitted, causing Gaia to laugh. How he loved her laugh! It was a smooth and sweet as a fine harp, so much finer than any instrument known to man. "Well let's try the wine you bought and see if it's any better."

Gaia blew out the fire under the pot of water, having the feeling their glass of wine might turn into more than one and other activities besides before sauntering off into the parlor where she had left everything she bought but what she needed to cook with. Erik watched her move delightfully as she bent over, purposefully giving him full view down the top of her dress and a coy grin as she unfurled herself, holding up the deep red bottle and shaking it gently. As Erik approached her she stepped back with a smirk, and Erik's eyes gleamed with amusion.

"Come now my pet, don't make me come after you."

"You think you can catch me?"

"Don't I always?" He challenged, darting towards her suddenly, drawing a shriek of delight from the young woman as she bolted up the stairs with the bottle to their bedroom, all thoughts of the horrible day pushed out of her head for the time being.

* * *

**Author's Note (with (kinda obvious) spoilers!):** My regular readers may have noticed the happy ending to one of my stories and the unhappy ending to another... well my dear readers, I have to admit I'm at an impasse for this one. I was was not expecting to like this story as much as I do (specifically I wasn't expecting to like Gaia as much as I do). To spoil the probably pretty obvious surprise, my original outline has her dying from Tuberculosis (consumption), which was a horribly common disease in the mid 1800s during which this story takes place (and is sadly still one of the top causes of death in poverty stricken countries, and is one of the reasons I'm considering getting a PhD instead of an MD, but that's a different story). Anyway, in the light of my coming to like this story more than I initially expected to, I've decided to ask YOU, my beloved readers, if you would like to see a happy ending. Keep in mind a happy ending will wind up making this story more un-canon than it already is. Not that that bothers me much, but it's something to consider. I also have an idea for another fic I might do after this one involving a transplanted Russian Ballerina, who arrives at the Opera Garnier after it is converted from an opera to a ballet several years after the incident involving a certain Mademoiselle Daae (which actually happened by the way; the French have seemingly always preferred the ballet to opera). That particular story may even be a sequel to this one, where the entire Christine fiasco would have involved Erik's son working under his father's name (and thereby allowing me to write a much younger Phantom and avoiding the awkward age gap that makes post-Christine fanfiction so difficult). Haven't decided yet. At any rate, let me know what you think either by PMing me or by replying. Also, the site's traffic gauge is still messed up, so even though I've gotten a few reviews it's still showing 0s across the board, so reviews would help me out in that respect too!


	24. Chapter 24

**Author's Note:** I'm so sorry I never got a chapter up last night! Yesterday evening I developed symptoms that are either indicative of a bizarre allergic reaction (to what, I have no idea), some sort of stress related illness, or worst case scenario a moderate yet annoying autoimmune disease called lupus (House M.D. fans who are going to say it's never lupus, I remind you that everybody lies, even cable television doctors). I went to bed early last night and have been fighting fatigue all day in spite of a full night's sleep. I'm writing this chapter, then taking a Benadryl and going back to bed. I tell you this to ask your forgiveness upfront if I don't wind up posting much quality work over the next few days until I can get to the doctor. Gotta love getting sick on the first day of a holiday weekend, right?

* * *

"Oh Erik, it's perfect!" Gaia exclaimed, walking into the little bed and breakfast for the first time. It had taken two years, but Erik finally finished remodeling the entire winery. The one bare-bones building now contained six bedrooms, each with a private bathroom, and a large kitchen and dining room. Erik would not allow Gaia inside until every last detail was in place, and he smiled with pride at her praise.

"I thought you would like it. All the rooms are furnished and everything," he told her as she wandered in to get a feel for it. "It still smells like paint, we ought to air it out a few days before advertising."

Gaia nodded. "It does, but it won't take long before it smells like the country," she grinned to him. "Thank you, Erik. It's even better than I imagined it would be."

"It's going to be a bother for you to have to walk over here every day. We might consider hiring help…"

"Oh, I don't know. We'll see how it works out for a year or two. Adrian will be three in another week, I'm sure you could watch him just fine while I clean up over here for a few hours a day," Gaia suggested. "Besides, you're so private. I wouldn't want to bring a stranger in."

Erik nodded his relent. "You have a point. But as soon as you feel overworked I want you to tell me and I'll hire someone from town. I won't have you getting sick just because-"

Gaia kissed her husband to quiet his fears. "If I start to get sick, I promise we can hire someone. But that's a very strong if! Erik it's been years since I've so much as coughed, will you ever stop fussing?"

"It's been years since you've been stressed!"

"Not terribly long. That time you went into the woods might have done it. Or when Adrian was born. Or the time you taught him how to play hide and seek a little too well."

Erik smirked some at the memory; he had schemed with his son to make Gaia think he really had vanished, Erik helping the two year old up into the loft of the stable and only telling his wife where the boy was when she started to panic. "You have to appreciate the artistry of that one."

"I have no appreciation for such a sick sense of humor," she scolded. "There's so much land here anything might have happened!"

"But it didn't," Erik reminded his wife as she wandered further into the building. "There's no need to get upset again. What are we going to do for his birthday this year?" He changed the subject gracefully, and Gaia immediately smiled.

"I'm going to bake the most delicious cake you've ever tasted. And I thought we might invite a couple of the village boys over to play this year," she suggested. "He really ought to start making friends…"

Erik said nothing, but Gaia could tell he was upset by the idea. She moved back to him from behind the polished wood reception desk and wrapped her arms around him. "What's wrong?"

"I don't think it's a good idea… but I think it might be a necessary evil," he frowned. Gaia quirked a brow at him in confusion, and Erik took a breath before explaining. "He doesn't understand that he's different. He needs to interact differently with the world than either you or I did, growing up; your world was softer than his, mine was harder… He needs to be exposed to how things really are in the world. How people are going to treat him beyond the safety of home."

Gaia frowned, remembering her trip into town two years prior during which she had been the victim of the cruelty over Adrian's looks… but other children would single out Adrian, and not her. Was he old enough to handle that? "I think you're right Erik. It's a bad idea."

"I think one day it will be necessary, but I wouldn't object to waiting a few more years to expose him to that. Besides, he's significantly more intelligent than most of his peers at three. He would probably get bored, don't you think?"

"I suppose," Gaia sighed, resting her head on her husband's shoulder as they began to walk hand in hand back to the house. "Why can't people see him like we do? He's just a little boy."

"The same reason people can't see me like you do," Erik explained, letting them inside. "Because humanity is vain. It takes time for people to begin to see past the surface. It did for you too, remember? You thought I was after your father's money at first."

She frowned quietly, realizing he was right; if she hadn't been forced to live with him and if she hadn't kept such a careful eye on him for her father's sake, even she might not have seen past his mask and the face beneath it. She had been just as vain as her contemporaries, only she had the opportunity to break through her vanity once she saw what was underneath. Where she had once felt so special so… superior than her peers for being able to see what a remarkable man really was, and for being the one lucky enough to earn his love, she now felt ordinary. Less than ordinary even. Who was she to be so self-righteous? Any other woman in her position surely would have fallen in love with Erik too.

"Erik? I know this seems like a strange question, and I'm sure we've talked about it before... but when was it you fell in love with me?"

"What a strange question indeed. I'm not sure I can pinpoint it. I know I didn't realize it was love until after I proposed, but it must have been sometime before then that I actually fell in love. The realization hit me like a sack of bricks, but falling in love was a much more subtle art, I think. Why do you ask?"

"Morbid curiosity I suppose," Gaia dismissed, wandering away from her husband to check on Adrian in his bed while he napped. "What a sound sleeper he is! Papa used to say he couldn't leave me alone in the house for two minutes. Apparently I used to wake up the moment he walked out the door," Gaia mused quietly. "We must have been out at the winery for ten minutes or more and he's still fast asleep."

Erik snaked his arms around his wife, kissing her neck tenderly; he knew there was something on her mind she was having trouble shaking, and if it was doubts about his love for her he had just the cure. "Do you think he'll sleep through the presents I bought for you?"

Gaia turned in his arms and wrapped her arms around his neck snugly. "It's not like the last present you got me, is it? Really I understand the false nose, but I still don't like-" Erik silenced his wife with a sound kiss.

"Not at all. I was going to wait until Adrian's birthday to give it to you, but I think now is a better time."

The woman smiled on his mouth. "Well, in that case you had better show me before I die of curiosity. There's more than one present?"

"There is indeed. Why don't you go on up to the bedroom and I will bring them up. They're hiding in the stable," He explained, and Gaia trotted upstairs to their bedroom with a grin. Erik was only absent a few minutes before slinking into the bedroom empty handed.

His wife pouted playfully. "You said you were bringing presents!"

"I brought them, don't fuss," Erik told her, amused. "Close your eyes."

Doing as she was told, Gaia leaned back against the pillows and closed her eyes. She felt her husband's long bony fingers deposit something small and furry in her hands, and immediately she opened her eyes. Cradled between her palms was a tiny kitten with long, silky white fur sleeping soundly. If the feline had any idea it was no longer in the barn, she made no sign of it. "Erik! She's precious! If I didn't no better I would have mistaken her for one of my powder puffs!" Gaia grinned to him. "Does she have a name?"

"I've been calling her Angel because of her coloring, but I think you ought to name her."

"Angel is what I was going to suggest, actually," Gaia grinned. Gently she freed one of her hands and stroked the tiny ball of fur with two fingers. The kitten blinked lazily revealing a pair of lovely, clear blue eyes so perfect Gaia couldn't help but gasp. Stretching out one paw, the little feline purred sweetly. "Where did you find her?"

"She was in a box in town last week, next to a box of puppies. I hope you don't mind, I got one of the dogs for Adrian for his birthday. She's still in the stable with the horses."

Gaia grinned. "I think that's a wonderful idea, Erik! It will certainly trump the new clothes I got him."

"You seem to have forgotten about your other presents, I suppose I should have given you the kitten last," Erik teased, and Gaia quickly moved out of bed to make a tiny bed for the kitten on the floor out of clean linens. She returned to the bed gaily, sitting cross legged in front of her husband and holding out her hands expectantly. Erik couldn't help but laugh. "Not so easily! Close your eyes again."

Gaia obeyed, closing her eyes before her husband reached around her neck, fastening something behind her head before pulling away his hands. Gaia opened her eyes and looked down at the small, delicately embellished gold locket between her breasts. Gingerly she picked it up and slipped a nail between the clasps to pry it open. Inside were two tiny sketches, one of her and one of two masks, a smaller one overlaying a much larger one. "Did you make these?" She asked, awestruck. "They're so small… but it looks just like me!"

"I borrowed the spectacles you used to use making your watches," Erik explained. "Do you like it?"

"Erik, it's beautiful. Simply beautiful," she breathed, inspecting the intricate patterns on the outside of the necklace and vowing privately never to take it off.

"There's still one more, but you don't have to close your eyes for this one." Erik pulled a thinly folded piece of fabric from his shirt and handed it to his wife. Gaia stood and shook out the fabric to discover its shape; a long robe made of blue silk in her favorite shade, with a neat little ribbon to tie under her breasts.

Erik raised a brow as she stood and stripped nude with her back to him, almost as if she were completely alone in the room. He couldn't help but admire her form as she did so, though he wanted to laugh at her complete and utter lack of shame around him. When she turned around again, she was dressed in nothing but the robe, which was only meant to cover her breasts over her night clothes and not to serve was a substitution for them. Her long legs slipped out one by one as she slinked back over to him, and Erik couldn't help but stare.

"Well, how does it look?" She asked with a knowing smirk, allowing herself to be pulled into bed by her hungry-eyed husband.

Neither of them noticed their son walk into the room until an involuntary moan from Gaia prompted the boy to act. Adrian jumped up onto the bed and shoved at his father, causing both Erik and Gaia to yelp in embarrassed panic. "Stop it, you're hurting her!"

If she weren't so mortified and a little pained by the deep thrust their son had caused by attacking his father, Gaia would have laughed at the look on Erik's face as he tried to cover the proof of his passion against Adrian's ferocious onslaught. The boy kicked and punched at Erik furiously until Erik was finally calm enough to restrain him. Gaia slipped out of bed and into the bathroom to change, desperate to avoid the awkward explanation that would surely follow.

She got the feeling the boy would be getting his puppy several days early.


	25. Chapter 25

**Author's Note:** Still pretty out of it guys, but I'm feeling a little better. Still no idea what caused it, but it seems to have been just a bad allergic reaction. Could be worse, could be bed bugs (or Lupus! A couple of terrifying hours went by when I thought I was actually really, legitimately sick. Not fun). Good news is I'm getting better, bad news is I'm getting better on account of the massive dose of antihistamines I'm on, which make me feel crazy weird. But I really want to write right now, so here goes nothing. Also, I posted the first two chapters of the Russian Ballerina story I mentioned a few chapters ago under the title 'Letting Go'. They were also written under the influence of Benadryl, and currently involve a much darker Erik than I've dealt with in the past, which is admittedly a little fun. I reserve the right to change them (and this chapter too) upon recovery.

* * *

Adrian's fourth year of life was stressful for everyone involved. In early February, the young boy developed a horrible, deep cough both Erik and Gaia immediately recognized. By the end of the month the boy was coughing blood, and by the end of March he had not only grown an inch taller but had lost two pounds, and was beginning to look as skeletal as Erik had when he first arrived in Persia. The stress of knowing she had given her son her disease caused Gaia to fall ill also. By the end of March she could hardly get out of bed without coughing blood into her handkerchief.

It was a vicious cycle Erik was desperate to break before he lost both of his wife and son; the sicker one got, the sicker the other got in turn from worry. "Gaia, I think you should go to Rome for a few days," Erik ventured one day in April as she stood in the kitchen, stirring pot of chicken bones and vegetables to make her son a broth. "it would be good for you to take a break, let me take care of Adrian for a couple of days while you focus on getting well-"

Erik had not quite finished his thought before Gaia glared back at him with dark eyes. "I am not leaving this house while my son is sick, Erik. I won't do it."

"Gaia I can take care of him just fine. I've been taking care of you for years."

"He is my _son_, Erik, and I will not leave him while he needs his mother the most. Pass me the garlic and an onion."

Doing as he was told, Erik frowned. "He needs you for his entire life, My Love. I need you for _my_ entire life. This is the worst you've been in years, if this keeps up… If this keeps up I'm afraid I'm going to lose you."

"You're always afraid you're going to lose me, Erik, and I've always told you I'm not going anywhere. I'll die when I'm good and ready, which isn't now," she told him stubbornly, stopping to cough into her shoulder well away from the soup. "Adrian is going to get better, I'm going to get better, we'll open up the inn again and things will go back to normal. It's all going to pass, it always does."

"It didn't pass for your father, Gaia," Erik reminded his wife. "And one day it won't pass for you either. Let me take that," he insisted, taking a bowl out of Gaia's hands and ladling the broth in it with a couple of pieces of soft vegetables for his son, about the only food he could swallow with a hoarse throat from coughing.

Gaia sighed and leaned against the counter. "I feel awful, Erik. I do. My whole body aches, I'm never hungry… but it's from guilt as much as it is from any bodily illness. This is all my fault! I gave it to him, and if he dies… If he dies I know my guilt will swallow me whole, I could never possibly live-" A quiet sob cut off her words as Erik put aside the bowl and moved to hold her tightly.

"It's not your fault, Gaia," Erik promised, though he had to admit that the deepest, darkest portions of his mind had once or twice blamed her for getting Adrian sick; it certainly had not come from him, or from the world outside. They were nearly completely isolated on their little house in the vineyard; Adrian was not even allowed into the inn while there were guests present. There was simply nowhere he could have contracted consumption except from his mother. "You got it from your mother, who got it from her mother in turn. It simply runs in the family."

Gaia hummed, not believing him in the least but appreciating his weak attempt at comfort nevertheless. "Go bring him the soup, I'll take out the dog," she offered. Erik seemed hesitating until Gaia explained. "I could use the fresh air, now couldn't I? And Adrian would do better seeing you than he would seeing me looking like such a mess."

Erik relented, taking the tray of soup in to his son who was reading in bed. He put the tray down and sat on the edge of the bed. "You've been in my library again. Do you need more of your own books?"

"No, Papa. I just saw this one and wanted to read it." Adrian explained, slipping a piece of parchment between the pages to mark his place. "Did you know Mozart died a pauper? I can't even imagine…"

Erik nodded. "Considering that is my book, I would say I did," he commented, amused.

"Mama's a lot like his wife, isn't she?"

"If by that you mean remarkably patient with her husband's eccentricities, than yes, I would say so. You know without his wife, we probably would never have known about Mozart today. He wasn't appreciated hundred years ago quite like he's becoming today. We might not have known about many of his great masterpieces without her dedication to him after his death."

Adrian thought about this for a long moment. "Do you think Mama will be that dedicated to you when you die?"

Erik was quiet for a moment, diverting his eyes to the floor. Having such a curious son, he was so often torn between being honest and telling a protective lie. "I don't think I will ever have to worry about that, Adrian," he finally said.

"Why not?"

"Well for one thing my work doesn't need to be played to survive. Buildings can last for hundreds of years, maybe even more."

"Not _that_ kind of dedicated, Papa. The book said Signora Mozart never slept with the man she married."

"Did it now?" Erik demanded, taking the book; if he had known it mentioned anything about sex whatsoever he would have kept it on a higher shelf, especially after the incident a year ago when Erik was forced to explain to the boy what sex was after being caught in bed with his wife.

"You know it did, it's your book," Adrian pointed out, and Erik gave him a look that caused the boy to smirk innocently. He got that attitude from his mother, Erik noted sorely.

"I still don't think it will be a cause for concern, mon fils," Erik told the boy quietly. "I will probably outlive your mother, though if God is merciful not by long."

Adrian's little brow furrowed. "What do you mean? You said men die before women do."

"That is often because women are far more sensible than men are. They are far less likely to be trampled by a horse or crushed under stone, or duel to the death. But yes, I have observed far more lonely old women than lonely old men," Erik admitted.

"Mama's told me your job is dangerous, being a stone mason and an architect. What if you get crushed, then what would Mama and I do?"

"That's less of a risk these days than it was before you were born, you needn't worry about that," Erik promised. Lately I've been drawing plans and not doing much of the actual building, which is the dangerous work."

"You're still not worried Mama might replace you if you die?" This caused Erik to frown deeply. There really was no avoiding it anymore.

"It's not a worry I've had for a long time, mon fils. I am almost certainly going to outlive your mother. Her illness… it rarely allows people to live into old age, certainly not to an age where I might die naturally before her."

This news caused Adrian to become very quiet. Erik frowned, wishing sometimes the boy weren't so dreadfully curious. The four year old coughed deeply, sounding younger when he coughed than when he spoke Erik realized. It was so easy to forget how young the boy was at times… Gaia came into the room with the dog, cheeks and nose rosey from the morning sun and fresh air. The collie-type dog jumped onto the bed at her boy's feet, nearly knocking over the soup which was still untouched.

"Adrian, you haven't eaten the soup I made for you," Gaia frowned, moving to feel her son's forehead for a fever.

"I'm not hungry, Mama."

"Won't you please eat just a little?" She asked, nearly begging. "You didn't have any breakfast either."

"…Mama, Papa says you're dying."

Gaia immediately gave her husband a hard look. "Why would he say such an awful thing?" Fluidly she moved to pick up the white cat who was demanding her attention.

Erik gaped. "I didn't – I didn't say it like –" Oh, there was no sense in arguing. Erik stood and moved out of the room to pour himself a large glass of wine, frustrated. Gaia sat at the foot of the boy's bed, allowing the lazy cat to curl up peacefully in her lap.

"Adrian my darling, everybody dies. It's part of nature. It's nothing to be sad about, I'm not going to die for a long, long time."

"Papa doesn't think so. He thinks you're going to die before him."

Gaia frowned. "Well. To be honest I rather hope that's the case. As much as he frustrates me sometimes I do love your father dearly, and I don't know what I would do without him. But Adrian, even if I do die before your father, it won't be for a very long time, not until you're grown yourself," she promised with a gentle smile.

"Do you think he'll marry someone else when you die?"

"Goodness Adrian, what have you and your father been talking about while I was out?"

"Mozart, and Mozart's wife. She remarried but never consummated the marriage," Adrian said simply, and Gaia sighed. Sometimes she worried her son was an adult in a young boy's body, he was so terribly old for his age.

"I… don't know that your father would have the opportunity to remarry. He's a strange man, you see. I flatter myself to think I'm the only woman he would ever love, but… I don't know that anyone would love him even half as much as I do. But if he did meet someone he could marry, I would want him to. I can't say I wouldn't mind him not consummating the marriage, but I certainly don't want him to be alone for the rest of his life."

Adrian was quite another moment. "It's because of his face, isn't it? Why your don't think Papa will remarry."

Gaia gaped a moment before closing her mouth and biting the inside of her cheeks until they bled. "I… yes, among other things. But Adrian, you mustn't think about that. You're far too young to be worried about marriages and death. Come on now, eat your soup before Sophie does." Gaia smiled, stroking the dog pleasantly.

"Only if you have a bowl with me," the boy demanded, and Gaia frowned.

"Oh, all right. If you insist," she relented, moving out of the bedroom and returning moments later with her own bowl of soup. They sat together on the bed, drinking soup and chatting about more pleasant things much to Gaia's relief. She slipped out of the room half an hour later with two empty bowls, setting them in the sink before moving deliberately across from her husband as he drank and stared off into space.

"He's four years old, Erik. Will you be discussing taxes when he turns five?" She reprimanded harshly, and Erik swirled the wine in his glass. Quietly she wondered what glass he was on.

"The boy has a right to know, Gaia."

"A right to know what, Erik? That his father will never remarry because he's too ugly for another woman to love? That everything dies?"

"No, Gaia, that his mother is dying," Erik snapped. "Something you need to start accepting yourself."

"…Erik you are a monster sometimes, do you know that? What on earth puts you into these moods? Get your head out of the grave and start enjoying life again, my love! How many glasses of wine have you had?"

"Enough?" Erik answered curtly, finishing his glass and standing.

"How many, Erik?"

"I believe that was the last of the bottle."

Gaia glared at him. "I don't like you when you get into these moods, Erik. Drinking isn't the answer-"

"Then what is, Gaia?" He whirled on her, shouting. "I'm tired of pretending like nothing's wrong! I'm tired of you trying to distract me with sex and games when you're well, and of you making me into the monster when you're sick. The disease is the monster, Gaia! You're never well, it's only in hiding! I can't… pretend anymore, Gaia. I just can't. Seeing you like this, seeing Adrian like this, it's killing me, and you won't even acknowledge that it's happening! So while you think of another answer for my misery, I'm going to get another drink," he announced, stalking off into the cellar for another bottle of wine.

His wife gave pursuit, moving down the stairs after him before finally catching him and pulling his arm hard enough to cause him to turn. Gaia pressed her lips on his firmly, not having to pull his head down from where she stood a step above him on the stairs. Erik's mouth melted against hers as she kissed him soundly, jumping up onto him after a moment and wrapping her legs around his middle. She was surprised to feel him so thoroughly aroused after a full bottle of wine, and began unbuttoning his shirt just enough to nip at his neck and collarbone. He groaned delightfully, carrying her down the final two steps to press her firmly enough against the wall to undo her trousers and take her while she was still in her skirts.

Gaia returned to her feet, breathing heavily as her husband caught his breath, still pressing her firmly against the wall. She held him tight around his middle, breathing in his wonderful scent. "…I can't do anything more than pretend, Erik. I'm not ready to leave you."


	26. Chapter 26

By the time Christmas came around, mother and son had mostly recovered from their sickness. It had taken the better part of a year, but finally the two had begun to return to a healthy weight, and their raw throats and sore lungs began to heal.

Gaia sank into the piping hot bath with a pleasant sigh. The water was so hot it turned her skin pink, but she didn't mind; it felt good on her aching muscles. Deep coughing for so long left her stomach and back sore, and Erik's insistence that she stay in bed as much as possible had taken its toll on her neck and shoulders. Erik knocked before slipping inside, more to let her know he was coming in than to ask permission. Gaia smiled up at him as he handed her a full glass of red wine.

"Thank you, Love," she purred pleasantly, taking a sip from the glass. "Where's Adrian?"

"Playing outside with Sophie," he told his wife, leaning against the sink with his own glass. "He's been getting cabin fever, I figured a bit of exercise might do him good. I don't want him out long in the cold, though."

"It's really not that cold out, you know," Gaia teased, gently. "You're right, the exercise will be good for him. Care to join me?"

"You make a compelling argument, My Love," Erik smiled, undressing and slipping into the water. Within moments his wife was nestled neatly in his arms, sipping her wine with a contented sigh. "It's been a while since we've done this, hasn't it?"

Gaia nodded. "Not since last year, I don't think. We missed our anniversary this year. Leave it to me to be sick on my favorite holiday," she mused, taking a drink of her wine.

"You were sick for the better part of the year, it's not as if your timing was off," Erik pointed out, kissing the top of her head. "How are you feeling?"

"Sore. Every muscle in my stomach hurts from coughing so much, I don't know how Adrian has the energy to be running about."

"We're getting old, Gaia. It's only downhill from here."

Gaia smacked her husband's arm gently. "You're so morbid sometimes. Twenty five isn't old at all. The way you talk I'll be gray haired and hunch backed by the time I'm thirty."

Erik chuckled and took a drink of his wine. "We shall have to relocate to Paris and get you a position at the Notre Dame," he teased, earning him another playful smack.

"You're horrible."

"You love me anyway," he pointed out, earning him a kiss his time.

"God only knows why," Gaia smiled on his mouth. "Massage my neck, would you? I've been trying to work the kink out of it all morning."

Erik put aside his wine and complied willingly, running his thumbs up and down her neck firmly while she hummed. Moments like this made Erik immensely glad he had decided not to run from Giovanni and continue his nomadic life. "You know, you seem to enjoy sex more than any woman I've ever met," he remarked offhandedly. "And you certainly seem to enjoy seducing me more than any woman I've ever met."

"You say that as if you have experience with a variety of women," Gaia remarked with a backwards glance at him. "You were a virgin when we married, weren't you?"

"Of course I was, you know that isn't what I met. The gypsies are a relatively… I guess you could say open race regarding sex. Only a handful of them seemed to enjoy it as much as you seem to."

"I suppose I just wound up with a better lover than they did," Gaia smirked back to him. "Lucky me I guess. You know what though, I hear stories of my sisters love lives fizzling out by the end of the first or second year of marriage, but I feel like ours is getting better. Maybe less frequent, but you've certainly gotten more control of yourself these past few years, and you know me so well it wouldn't matter if you didn't. I don't think so many men are as attentive as you are, perhaps that's why there aren't as many women as satisfied as I am," she smiled genuinely, turning to kiss him. "I'm sure the fact I'm hopelessly in love with you doesn't hurt either."

Erik kissed her back soundly. "I'm going to miss you, when you have to go."

That had been their agreement; if Erik insisted on not pretending nothing was wrong, Gaia was going to insist they not talk about death. Make it into a trip, an extended absence, but not death. Death was too… terrifying. Too permanent to stomach yet.

"I know. I'm going to miss you too," she promised, knowing that whatever happened after death, whether it be heaven, hell, purgatory, or even nothingness this would surely be the case. "But right now I'm here," she told him with a kiss. "Though we probably should get out before Adrian comes in. I worry sometimes we're going to scar him for life, the way we get on."

"Me too, especially considering… Well, considering," he said simply, and Gaia understood his meaning.

"You mustn't worry about him, Husband. He's a wonderful boy, and he'll be a wonderful man. What we have is rare, even for the most beautiful people. If he finds someone he can be even half as happy with as we are with each other, he'll be just fine," she told him with more confidence than she felt. She often worried that her sweet, intelligent, magnificent little boy would end up alone. He had no friends but his parents, a dog, a lazy cat and a few horses. They were enough for now, but they wouldn't always be.

Erik hummed quietly in unsure response, kissing her shoulder before standing, holding open a towel to wrap his wife in as she stood and stepped out of the bath after him. As he toweled himself dry, Gaia sat on the edge of the tub to pull the drain before finishing the last of her wine, thoughtfully. "Erik? What do you think about having another baby?"

The tall man stood straight as he buttoned his trousers and pulled on his shirt. "I think Adrian is plenty, don't you?"

"Of course he is, Erik, but… I don't know. I worry about what's going to happen to him when we're gone. Besides, as frustrating as they can be siblings are wonderful. Don't you think your childhood would have been a little better with a brother or sister to confide in?"

"No, frankly I don't. He or she would probably have been beautiful and my life would have gone down the drain well before it did."

Gaia frowned pensively. "Your mother was a wretched woman though. We wouldn't favor a child just because it is or isn't beautiful, and you know it. If anything Adrian would be our favorite, since he's our first, and he's such a remarkable boy."

Erik merely hummed, and Gaia continued. "Think of all it would teach him that we can't. How to interact with people more his age. How to treat his peers. Besides, he'll have someone to play with."

"He has Sophie."

"A_ person_ to play with, close to his own age. A dog teaches him responsibility, a sibling would teach him humanity."

"I'll think about it, how about that?" Erik relented, not wanting to immediately dismiss the idea but still extremely hesitant. Gaia was a remarkable mother, but he couldn't help but feel like if the child were beautiful she might indeed play favorites. And besides, another child meant another mouth to feed, and more time away from his family working in the city.

But Gaia was right on several points. Another child in the house would be good for Adrian. There was so much he still needed to learn about people. Some things he could only get from interacting with the outside world, but maybe some things they could teach him in the safety of their own home. It was something to consider at the very least.

Gaia didn't press the matter, and had forgotten about it completely by the time they rang in the new year. Much to her surprise, it was Erik who approached the subject again not long into the year, although indirectly. Gaia sat on the floor, leaning against her husband's legs contentedly and braiding the white cat's long fur as Erik read aloud from One Thousand and One Nights. Adrian was listening entranced as his father told stories of the East until Gaia rose to start preparing lunch.

"Papa, won't you read another story?"

"I'd rather your mother be here to listen to," he explained, standing to hand the boy the book. "But you're welcome to continue if you'd like."

"It's so much better when you read it, Papa. You tell it better than I do in my head."

Erik chuckled, "Years of practice, mon fils."

"You always call me that. What does it mean?"

"Only 'my son'. It's French term of endearment. I don't know why I started calling you by it, really. I haven't had to use French in a long time."

Perhaps it was the memory of his childhood in France, or perhaps it was simply speaking with his son, but something drew Erik to bring up the topic of a child with Adrian. "Adrian, what would you think if your mother and I had another child?"

The boy's brow furrowed. "Another child? Are you not happy with me, Papa?"

"No mon fils, that's not it at all. Not a child to replace you, one to keep you company while we become old and gray."

"Oh," said the boy, looking immensely relieved. He thought seriously for a long moment before answering. "I think I would like that. Would it mean I have someone to play with?"

"Yes, it would, though probably not for a few years. You could play with a baby of course but they're quite delicate."

Adrian nodded his understanding, though Erik wasn't quite sure how he would know what a baby was at all, let alone that they were delicate. "I think that would be fine," he smiled, and Erik nodded. If the boy wanted a sibling, he would have a sibling.


	27. Chapter 27

"Erik! Adrian! Come quick!" Shouted Gaia to her family as she sat by the fireplace one winter morning, a hand on her bulging belly. Erik was in the room in the blink of an eye, with seven year old Adrian just behind him.

"What is it?" Erik demanded, expecting the worst; This time last year, Gaia had suffered a miscarriage a child they had only known about for a few days. Now Gaia was in the final months of a fresh pregnancy, and the whole family was on edge after the memory of what had happened only a year before.

Gaia grinned up at her husband. "She's moving, come and feel!" the woman demanded, pulling down her husband by his hand to guide it to her belly. Erik and his son both breathed a visible sigh of relief, and obediently placed their hands where they were bidden.

"Mama, you scared us half to death," scolded Adrian, who had been receiving a piano lesson from his father when Gaia had called.

"I'm sorry, I wasn't thinking. This is just the first time I've felt her move enough that you can feel her too and I didn't want you to miss it," Gaia explained, not having meant to worry the two. "Wait a moment, let's see if she-" The woman didn't even have a chance to finish her sentence before Adrian's eyes widened in surprise and he pulled his hand back, startled

Gaia couldn't help but laugh. "You felt her?"

"Was that really her? It's so… weird."

"Right before your mother had you, her belly was so tight we actually saw your foot once or twice," Erik told the boy, who wrinkled his face where there should have been a nose.

"It's still strange. It's under your skin… but it's alive."

"Imagine how it is from where I'm sitting," she teased the boy, cupping his face in her hands fondly and kissing his forehead. "I was fascinated with the feeling when I had you, when I wasn't too busy making your father massage out all my aches and pains."

"Was I really such a bother?" the boy frowned.

Gaia shook her head. "A little more than she's been, but I didn't get any morning sickness with you like I did with her early on. And I didn't have nearly so many cravings when I was pregnant with you. Everything is a trade off, I suppose," she smiled.

"Speaking of cravings, if you eat dirt again I'm never kissing you again," threatened Erik half heartedly while Adrian made a disgusted face.

"The French man judging what I eat! Ha! Italian dirt trumps French cuisine any day," she teased, pecking her husband's lips lovingly as he chuckled; the cultural stress between France and Italy was an ancient one the pair treated lightly, considering by now Erik was practically a native born Italian. "Now help me up so I can start lunch."

Erik pulled Gaia to her feet with another kiss, pulling at her playfully as she moved from his arms into the kitchen. "How does lasagna al forno sound? I'm terribly hungry."

"Make whatever the baby wants," Erik told her with a bit of a laugh, knowing that was her plan anyway. All three members of the little family turned and stared at the door when there was a loud knock.

There was a long period of silence before Gaia finally untied her apron and moved past her tense husband and confused son. "Relax, would you? It's probably just someone too thick to read the sign that we're closed for the winter and are trying to check in here." Gaia promised them; this was the first time anyone but a cabby had knocked at their door, and certainly the first time they had an unexpected visitor.

Gaia waited for her husband and son to flee the room and hide their faces before opening the door and smiling genially. She was greeted with the sight of a portly older gentleman, who smiled wearily. Gaia greeted the man with a kind smile. "Good morning sir, how can I help you?"

"Ah yes, is this the Renard residence?" The man asked in thickly accented Italian, and Gaia quirked a brow before Erik came to the door, standing behind his wife and placing a protective hand on her shoulder. Suddenly she recognized the name, and also the man's accent; it was similar to the strange accent Erik had when he first arrived in Italy.

"Who is asking?" The masked man demanded, and the older gentleman looked quiet taken aback by the sight of such a lovely woman under the care of such an eccentric man… and pregnant by him no less!

After taking a moment to shake off his judgments, the man spoke again. "I am Monsieur Thomas, a messenger for the head of the Renard estate. Am I at the right residence?" The man asked again, wishing to be certain of his location before revealing his purpose.

"You are," Erik told the man curtly, and Gaia elbowed her husband out of the way to open the door further.

"Please Signore, come inside. I was just making lunch, would you care to join us?" She offered politely.

"Actually the business I have come with is quite lengthy. I'm certain it would run right through your lunch hour, and I certainly wouldn't say no to a plate so long as it's on business," the man smiled genially, as he stepped inside. Adrian peered around the corner, keeping a tight hand on the dog's collar to keep the animal from being rude to their guest.

"You are more than welcome to join us, Signore. I am Gaia Renard, this is my husband Erik and our son, Adrian," Gaia told the man, who smiled nervously but politely.

"A charming family, Madame. And a growing one I see."

Gaia smiled and touched her belly. "Indeed, and a girl this time I'm quite pleased to say."

The man quirked a brow. "How is it you know?"

"Women's intuition, Signore."

"Ah. My wife said the same about our daughters; she was convinced they were all going to be boys! At any rate, Monsieur, I take it you are the one I have come to see. Is your mother Madeleine Renard?"

"She is," answered Erik in French. "And if you don't mind, I would like to speak our native tongue if the matter is regarding my mother."

The man nodded and sat when Erik gestured for him to. "Why certainly, Monsieur," the man answered in French. "Monsieur Renard, I am sorry to inform you that your mother has passed away."

"Why would anyone be sorry to inform me of such news?" Erik mumbled bitterly before speaking so the man could hear him. "She is quite young to have passed away. What would she be by now, fifty?"

"She was forty six when she passed, Monsieur. Madame Renard died last spring, of unknown causes. My employer regrets that he could not locate you sooner, you were very difficult to track down."

Erik nodded. "I worked very hard to make that so. How was it you managed to find me?"

"Madame Renard's fortune and possessions were about to be given to the church when there was a rumor around the village that the woman had a son. My employer did a little investigating, and found a wedding invitation addressed 'to the mother of the groom', for a ceremony that was to take place in Rome. I went to the address, and the lady of the house gave me this address," the man explained, clearly exhausted by his journey.

"You're telling me the woman left me an inheritance?" Erik asked, dumbstruck.

"The woman left no will whatsoever, I'm afraid, which is why her possessions were going to the church initially. As her only surviving child, technically everything she owned is now yours. And may I tell you, it is a substantial sum."

The masked man's mood turned sour; he didn't want a single franc from his mother, not one dinner plate or silver spoon… but a large sum of money would sustain the little family well after Gaia gave birth, letting Erik stay home with his family. He loved his work, but commuting into Modena or even as far as Vienna for projects became exhausting, and every moment away from his family weighed heavily on his heart.

For nearly an hour the man read off a list of the possessions that were now Erik's to claim if he wanted them. When Gaia called them into the kitchen for lunch, Erik was pensive while the man and his wife made idol conversation about the man's stay in Italy so far. Finally Gaia couldn't take anymore, and squeezed her husband's hand.

"What is worrying you so much, Husband?"

"This gentleman has come to offer me a large sum of money, and belongings that will nearly double that sum… would you like me to take it?" Erik asked her, deciding it was not a decision he could make; his bitterness and resentment for his mother were too strongly effecting his judgment.

Gaia gaped some. "I'm not really in a position to make that decision, Erik. It's not as if we have any debts, and we're certainly not struggling to make ends meet with your income."

"I know, but with another child on the way… The money is so substantial that I could retire and we could live off of it modestly until we're old and gray."

"Well Erik, isn't that what you've wanted? To retire and be a family? I know you expected a longer career, but if you have the opportunity why not take it? It would give you more freedom to choose your clients and not sacrifice the quality of your work."

Erik nodded. "That is true."

"So what is the concern?"

"Sir, would you excuse us for a moment?" Erik asked of the man, standing from the table to move back into the parlor with his wife. He sat on the armrest of his favorite chair while Gaia moved comfortingly into his arms. "My concern is the source of the money. Even if we sell all of her things and none of them are in the house… I don't ever want to feel like I am indebted to her. I feel as though this is her final attempt to prove she isn't a horrible mother. Maybe it wasn't her intention, but that is what this feels like. My early retirement would ultimately be because of her."

"Can you really be indebted to someone if they're dead, though? It's not as if she expects you to repay her. And Erik, what if this is her way of apologizing for being so horrible to you?" Gaia suggested, squeezing his hands. "My Love, it doesn't matter to me either way if you take the money. I can't say I wouldn't be glad to have you home more; it's terribly dull around here without you. But it isn't as if you're gone terribly often, and we have your income from architecture and the income from the bed and breakfast during the spring and summer. If you're not comfortable taking the money, then don't take it. I would love to make the decision for you, but it's ultimately yours to make."

Erik nodded quietly, resting his chin on his wife's head as he held the neat little space between her breasts and the bulge where their daughter grew. Moving a hand down to her belly absently, he felt the small flutter of life under her skin and caught the private smile in Gaia's eyes as their daughter reminded her of her presence. Erik kissed the top of Gaia's head and returned with her to the kitchen.

"Monsieur, I've decided to accept the inheritance. But I would like all of my mother's worldly possessions sold. Whatever doesn't sell you have my permission to donate. The sum may be sent to this address," Erik told their guest in Italian so that Gaia could understand, and the woman smiled before kissing her husband's masked cheek, proud of his decision; she would have been pleased either way, but she was perhaps selfishly pleased she would get to see more of him. Really he did not leave often, but when he did hours felt like weeks, and days felt like years.

Gaia packaged up some of the leftover food for the man to take with him on his trip as they sent him on his way. As soon as the man was out of the house, father and son removed their masks, Adrian rather bitterly. Gaia frowned. "I'm sorry, my darling. It's only a precaution. Besides, that's the first time you've had to wear it in quite a while."

"I know, Mama. I just hate it is all," the boy explained, moving to put away the mask while Gaia frowned to Erik.

"I can't say that I blame him; they are rather uncomfortable," he explained.

Adrian reappeared in the kitchen while his mother was cleaning. "Mama, does this mean we're rich now?"

Gaia couldn't help but laugh. "Well, not in the way I assume you mean. Why do you ask?"

"Everybody likes rich people," Adrian explained, and Gaia frowned.

"Where on Earth did you hear that?"

"Nowhere. But in books they're always throwing parties everybody comes to," Adrian explained, and Erik stood in the doorway.

"Wealthy people aren't any more or less liked than the poor or middle class," Gaia explained. "They're just… surrounded by people who want to use them for their money."

"If anything wealthy people are less liked. They often have very sour attitudes," Erik chimed in, moving to poor himself a glass of wine. "We will technically be wealthy, and if we spent all the money at once we could likely live like those people you read about for a few years, maybe even more. But it's more important to me that your mother and I live comfortably for the duration of our lives, and that you and your sister have some wealth to support you through yours."

"So we're not really rich," Adrian frowned, and Gaia kissed the top of his head, handing him a sugar coated piece of fruit from a bag on the counter, which the boy accepted eagerly.

"I for one would never want to be. My Papa wealthy. Maybe not as wealthy as the people in your books, but plenty well off. He had very few people in his life who truly cared for him; everyone else was trying to reach their hand into his pocketbook. I would rather cut the rest of those people out and simply enjoy our little family, wouldn't you?"

"I suppose," relented Adrian thoughtfully as he bit into his candied fruit, and Gaia smiled.

"Come along mon fils, back to your lessons," Erik urged, and Adrian moved eagerly into the study where the piano was kept. He kissed his wife heartily before moving off after their son, and before long the house was filled with the rich sounds of Mozart and Bach.


	28. Chapter 28

The birth of Cadence was somehow both easier and more nerve racking for Erik and Giada than was the birth of their son. Due to midwife's reaction to Adrian's birth, they had had trouble finding a midwife close enough to them to assist with the delivery. Erik was resistant to look at all after the last midwife had completely neglected her duty to Adrian the moment she saw how hideous the child was, but agreed to look solely for Gaia's safety during the birthing process. When months of looking proved futile, the pair decided they would simply prepare for the birth themselves. After all, Gaia now knew what to expect from the ordeal.

The baby came the day she predicted, and Gaia was able to immediately recognize the signs of her labor. While no less painful a process, the birth took a mere eight hours, no time at all in comparison to the long labor she had endured giving birth to Adrian. This time Erik was by her side the entire eight hours, except when left briefly to make Adrian food and to give him piano exercises to distract the boy from the happenings upstairs. With a final push, the life that had been inside Gaia was free, a squirming, bloody pink mass of flesh that cried as soon as Erik coaxed her to take her first breath.

Erik was silent while the newborn cried, too awestruck to even clean the girl and pass her off to Gaia. She was perfect. Certainly she was as bizarre as any newborn… but in her bizarreness she was flawless. Her skin was supple and smooth, pink in its newness but clear and perfect. Her small nose suited her face perfectly, as did her full cupid-bow lips which were open in a melodic cry. Erik finally came to his senses and wiped the newborn clean with a warm cloth, drying the girl and moving to Gaia's side once again.

Gaia sat upright with an exhausted smile, fixing the pillows behind her back. Erik sat on the bedside and transferred the girl into her mother's arms. "Oh, wow," Gaia breathed stroking the newborn's supple pink cheek. "Hello, Cadence," she greeted softly as Erik moved to change the sheets and clean before Adrian came in.

When Adrian's curiosity about the crying upstairs finally overtook him, he moved away from the piano and ventured up to his parents' bedroom. When Gaia saw him standing in the doorway, she smiled broadly and opened her free arm to her son, who climbed up onto the bed next to his mother and stared at the sleeping mass wrapped in a soft brown blanket. "That's the baby?" he asked curiously, inspecting the full-lipped, round cheeked newborn. At eight years old he knew plenty about the concept of babies, but had never before seen one. "She's so small! And why are her cheeks so big?"

"Babies are portly for the first few years, to keep them warm," Erik explained, squeezing his son's shoulder and smiling down at him. "She is a little small though."

"We were surprised at how small Adrian was too, though," Gaia pointed out. "And look how big he's gotten."

"True enough," Erik conceded, kissing his wife's forehead.

"Mama you look sick," frowned Adrian, and Gaia chuckled.

"I'm just tired is all, my darling. It was a lot of working bringing Baby Cadence out to see us," she explained.

"Cadence?"

"Your mother and I picked it just yesterday, or we would have told you sooner," Erik explained, sitting at the foot of the bed and watching his little family.

"It's a lovely name. Papa, why don't I look like her?"

This innocent questioned caused Erik to frown. "Well. I don't think anyone can really say, mon fils. Perhaps it is fate."

"I didn't think you believed in fate, Papa?" Adrian asked with a quirked brow.

"I don't know what I believe in Adrian. But I know that without my face looking as it does I would never have met your mother, and you and lovely Cadence would have another man as your father."

"Or worse, you wouldn't be here at all," Gaia added. "Your father may not be certain of fate, but I am. I've never known anything to happen for no reason at all. Your father's face may seem like a misfortune, but his past saved my virtue and quite possibly my life when we were younger, brought me the love of my life. The death of my mother so young contributed as well, no doubt. Sometimes the things we view as grave misfortunes are what bring us the great successes in our lives," The woman smiled down to her daughter before smiling back to her son, who seemed pleased with her answer.

The infant fussed in Gaia's arms, and the woman hushed the girl gently. Erik clasped his son's shoulder and nodded to the door. "I believe Cadence is hungry. Why don't I make us some supper while she eats?"

"You don't have to do that, Erik, I'll be down in a moment," insisted Gaia, and Erik chuckled.

"Nonsense. We can fend for ourselves for one night. You've had a long day, and our daughter to care for. I'll bring you up a plate in a while," Erik promised his wife with a kiss, eliciting a smile as she held the girl to her breast to feed her.

Erik returned before long with a large plate of food, setting it on the bedside table to wrap his arms around his wife as she stood over the crib that had once been Adrian's that now cradled their darling daughter. Gaia smiled and turned in his arms to wrap her arms around his neck.

"Thank you for another wonderful child, Erik," she smiled and was met with a kiss.

"The thanks belongs to you. She is stunning. A work of art, truly. If I didn't know better I would have thought she was a cherub. How did you and I make something so… perfect?"

"Adrian is no less perfect," Gaia pointed out. "I suppose it is because we are lucky enough to be young and in love. Or perhaps we are more blessed than we can imagine. Perhaps every parent feels their children are perfection. I cannot say."

"Adrian cannot stop asking questions. He wants to know where babies come from, what they eat, how they grow. He's going to be a wonderful brother."

"You're not worried he's jealous?" Frowned Gaia, and Erik shook his head.

"Maybe a little, but no more than I imagine any sibling would be of a new child taking the attention of their mother. I'm certain your sisters were jealous of you, when you were born."

Gaia nodded some. "Yes I suppose they were… what do you think of her, Erik? Truly? I know you were nervous of what might happen if she were born so beaut-"

The woman was silenced with a kiss. "I think she is as radiant as her mother is," he promised, "and it does not make me love her any less. My fear was always for how you might treat Adrian in the light of such an angel, but you were wonderful to him and I am increasingly certain that will not change. How you do it, I haven't the slightest idea," Erik remarked quietly.

"Erik, I love you, but for the love of God we've been married for nearly ten years. Ten years, Erik! Would you please put away these thoughts? Whoever or whatever taught you that you do not deserve to be loved because of your face was wrong, in so many ways. And whoever dares say that about my son is just as wrong."

Erik frowned and hung his head. "I did not mean to offend you, Gaia."

"I am not offended, Erik. I love you. I simply worry about you, and your health. You're still so… dark, sometimes. I've never told you this, but you talk in your sleep sometimes, did you know?

"No, I didn't," he admitted with a brow furrow. "What is it I say?"

"It's not… really what you say that worries me, but the context in which I think you might be saying it. You've begged me not to go until you wept at times. There have been dreams in which you've thrashed so violently you frightened me… I think in those dreams you found me with another man, judging by what you have said," she confided, unsure of whether to tell him these things at all. "I never told you because you never seemed to remember them in the morning. You never treated me differently anyways, not that I noticed."

"You're right, I don't remember them," frowned Erik thoughtfully. "I have on occasion woken up feeling an incredible sense of loneliness. I wonder if it was after those nights…"

"I couldn't say. All I know is the things that go on in your wonderful, brilliant mind worry me at times. I haven't had that nightmare about Marco in years, but just last week you mentioned him in your sleep-"

"That dream I do remember. It was exactly the events of the night I threw him from the window, that's all," Erik promised, and Gaia kissed him.

"Why do such things still come to your mind, Erik? That is why I worry. We have a beautiful, happy family, but I worry in private you're not… happy. Or not as happy as I am, anyway."

Erik rested his chin on the top of his wife's head as he held her tightly. "I promise you I am happy. This… our life is more than I ever imagined was possible for me. It was more than anyone I've met has imagined for me. After I proposed to you I dreamed of things like this but I don't think I honestly believed that nearly ten years after marriage we would not only still be in love, but have two children, a dog, a cat, horses, a business… this our life, and I adore it, I swear. My only concern is what happens to our life when you leave it. Maybe it won't happen now," he added quickly, not wishing to cause an argument they had had a hundred times before. "But eventually it will. And just… what am I suppose to do with all of it without you. God forbid you die before the children are grown, what do I do with them? I can't raise a child on my own, you're the one holding this family together. When you go… I'm afraid there won't be any thing left."

"First of all, I am not going to leave you before the children are grown. I would never do that to you, my love. But even if something happened and I did, you could certainly care for them! You're a wonderful cook and you know it, not to mention a brilliant teacher."

"That's just it, Gaia. My role in Adrian's life has been mostly as his teacher. He needs the love and affection he gets from his mother. So will Cadence," he added with a glance into the crib. "I love them both, but I just… can't show it the same way you do. I don't know why. Your father was perfectly affectionate."

"If you want to be, or needed to be, you will be. I know you, Erik. You can do absolutely anything you want to do. I've been affectionate enough to Adrian for the both of us, but if something happens I know you would raise them both in a loving home. Please for my sake, stop worrying. I know it's difficult; I spent years fussing over my father the way you fuss over me, but really it isn't worth the stress my love. Now would you be a dear and massage my back? It's been stiff all afternoon; hours and hours of labor takes its toll."

Erik chuckled some, deciding to put aside his worries for the time being to see to his wife as she moved into bed stiffly, laying down on her stomach to give her husband access to her back. He loved how open Gaia was with him, he reflected as he warmed a small amount of oil in his hands while she undressed. He knew other couples were not like them just by watching them move around the marketplace; on the rare occasion a man accompanied his wife, they stood well apart and hardly spoke. Erik and Gaia were nearly inseperable. On the days one went to the market without the other, the trips were brief and rushed. On days they went together, they walked arm in arm and chatted animatedly about their prospective purchases, or even completely unrelated topics such as their son's mastery of a new piano piece or the eccentricity of a guest at the inn.

That was one of the things that worried Erik; he feared he was simply too in love, too attached to his wife to survive losing her. There was a species of dove he had studied once, that mated for life. Once he had seen a cat eat one of a pair of birds, and the other one became so depressed it simply lost the will to live and died within hours of its partner. Erik knew in his heart he would be similarly grieved by his wife's death, but dared not mention it. Gaia would think him melodramatic and foolish… but he knew in his heart it was true. Even if his body did not die, his soul would without a doubt. Could he raise children as a shell of a man?


	29. Chapter 29

**Author's Note:** I will never, ever be happy with this chapter, but it's time to put it out there. :(

* * *

On the day of his fifteenth wedding anniversary, Erik became a widower.

Gaia had been ill off and on for several weeks, and had continued to dismiss the worries of her teenage son and his father. "Would you two stop fussing already? You're going to worry Cadence," she insisted, coughing flecks of blood into her handkerchief. "I've been ill a hundred times before. I haven't gone anywhere yet, and I'm not going anywhere now," she insisted stubbornly. "Now where is Cadence, we're suppose to go pick out a new kitten today."

The cat Erik had given his wife had lived a long, full life, and had passed away quietly in her sleep. Gaia and her five year old daughter had been heartbroken, and the woman was forced to explain the principle of death to a girl she felt was far too young to be hearing such things. "I know you're sad, my little dove, but she loved us as dearly as we loved her. She is probably hunting mice for us in heaven right now," Gaia promised with a sad smile, wiping at her own eyes. "Do you remember that time she brought you that mouse right to your bed? You were her little kitten just like you are mine."

Cadence nodded tearfully. "Do animals really get to go to heaven like people do, Mama?" The girl asked, large brown eyes looking dolefully at her mother. The woman nodded confidently.

"I am certain of it. We'll all be together again someday, no matter what happens. You, me, Papa, Adrian, even Angel and Sophie," Gaia promised, glaring at Erik a little when he hung his head from the doorframe; that had not been the story he was told when his precious dog Sasha had been murdered by a group of angry village boys, but he said nothing. Cadence hugged her mother tightly.

"I'm glad, then. Heaven sounds so beautiful. I'm sure has lots of warm laps to sit on, and plenty of people to stroke her," Cadence said so sweetly Gaia could not help but chuckle.

"I'm sure you're right, my little dove. Come now, we'll find a new kitten to love and to terrorize the mice," the woman smiled, picking up her daughter and carrying her on her hip, pecking Erik at the door as she stepped out.

Erik touched his lips gently, brow furrowed curiously. "Gaia, wait a moment. Cadence darling, why don't you go see if Adrian needs anything from the market before you go."

"Yes, Papa," smiled the girl, stepping down from her mother's arms to go and see her brother, whom she adored just as much as Adrian adored her. As soon as she was gone Erik kissed his wife again, more deeply. Gaia returned the gesture and smiled on his lips.

"Someone's in a mood today," she smiled coyly. "Maybe if you promise to be good I'll pick up a nice bottle of brandy and some pears while I'm out and we'll share some dessert after supper," she offered, knowing it was one of her husband's favorite treats.

"You taste like blood," he announced, and Gaia's smiled turned immediately to a frown. "I don't want you going out today."

"Nonsense, Erik. It's probably just the lamb we had for lunch-"

"I know what blood tastes like, Gaia, and you taste of it," Erik told her firmly, having been struck about the face more than enough times to recognize the sickly metallic taste. "You've been coughing blood again, haven't you been?"

"Only a little. Honestly Erik, every time I sneeze you're right behind me checking me for a fever-"

"Coughing blood is different, Gaia. It is a very, very serious matter," he told her firmly. "I'll take Cadence into town, I want you to stay home today."

"This is important to me, Erik. Angel was near and dear to my heart, you know that. I know it seems silly to you that I am mourning over a cat, but my heart aches, and so does Cadences."

"I understand what it means to mourn for a pet, Gaia, but your health is more important to me than any animal."

"Then rest assured when I tell you that I am fine. This is important to me," she reiterated. "And for Cadence. We won't be gone long," she promised, moving past her husband down the stairs. "Cadence darling, time to go!"

Cadence ran into the room into her mother's arms. "Adrian says he would like a new quill, since the nib of his is broken."

"Well I think we can take care of that for him," Gaia smiled, kissing her husband where he stood on the bottom step. "Was there anything you needed, Erik?"

"Only for you to come back to me safely," Erik told her, and Gaia kissed him again before Cadence grabbed her father's face and kissed him also. "You as well, my darling girl," the man promised to his daughter, who smiled so brightly Erik could not help but return the gesture. As close as he had come to Adrian as the boy grew older, sweet little Cadence would always hold an untouchable place in his heart he suspected every father held for his daughter.

Five hours later when Gaia had not returned, Erik began pacing like a wild animal. Adrian, now thirteen years old but as mature as any man, dared to grab his father by the arm to stop his wild movements. "Papa, please. You're making me nervous. Let me go and look for them. You can wait here in case they return," The boy offered, his voice finally starting to suit his adult appearance.

Erik waved the boy off. "You can't go into the city alone, they'll murder you."

"You do fine when you go alone, and I'm not any more horrible than you are. Please, Papa. I'll come back before dark, and I promise I will have them with me."

"My answer is no. If anyone goes into Modena it will be me," Erik told him firmly, and Adrian moved to the window with a frown. Another hour passed, and Adrian perked up. "Papa! Someone's coming up the road!"

Erik immediately moved outside to the road with Adrian in pursuit. Sure enough Gaia and Cadence rode into view, and Erik moved to the stable. "Where the hell have you been? We've been worried sick about you all day!"

"I'm sorry, Erik. I was held up," Gaia apologized, passing Cadence to Erik as she dismounted and moved to collect a small kitten from the saddle bag.

It was then Erik caught sight of her wrist, which had a red spot on it. "You've had blood drawn! Did you go to the hospital?" Erik demanded, and Gaia glared at him.

"Can we please go inside, Erik? I'm exhausted," Gaia pleaded, and Erik bit his tongue and moved inside. Erik set Cadence down, and Gaia handed the girl the small tabby-type kitten. Adrian came inside behind them and hugged his mother tightly before moving to Cadence.

"Cadence, come and show me your new pet?" He asked, eager to draw her away from their parents and from the fight that would undoubtedly ensue.

As soon as the children moved into the study, and Erik rounded on his wife. "What the hell happened, Gaia?"

"…I collapsed in the market. I woke up not too long later in the hospital. A physician was in the market on his day of and brought me in. I left the moment they would let me, Erik," she promised, and Erik frowned.

"Well, what did the physician say?"

Gaia bit her lip. "That I ought to stay. That my heart was weak, which is why I fainted. Brilliant man diagnosed me with consumption, which I told him I had as soon as I woke. Now if you don't mind, I'm quite exhausted. Do you think you could handle supper tonight?"

"Of course. Go rest," Erik told her with a bit of a sigh as she kissed him and moved upstairs.

Gaia's condition never improved. The next morning she did not wake until nearly noon, drenched in sweat and coughing deeply. A day later, she could hardly breath. Erik took care of the children as best he could while trying to take care of his wife as well. Finally Cadence and Adrian came into their parents bedroom to wish Gaia goodnight before Erik put them to bed. Gaia smiled and wished her son and daughter sweet dreams. Adrian sensed something was different about her behavior that night, and frowned deeply as he left the room with Cadence and Erik for bed.

Erik returned before long and moved into bed with his wife, who immediately moved into his arms. "Adrian is upset," he told her quietly, and Gaia nodded.

"…He knows I'm leaving soon," Gaia whispered, and Erik frowned deeply; this was the first time he could remember Gaia ever admitting she was truly ill. "He's always been terribly perceptive, that boy."

"He has been. You're not… you're not leaving too soon, I hope," Erik ventured, and Gaia closed her eyes tightly.

"Only God can say… But it hurts, Erik," she admitted quietly. "Every breath is like breathing fire. I have to think about breathing, it doesn't come naturally anymore. I'm so afraid I'm going to fall asleep and forget to breath…"

Erik wiped fiercely at his eyes and kissed his wife soundly, disheartened by the taste of blood on her lips. "Don't sleep then. Stay up with me. You don't even have to talk if it hurts too much, we'll simply be awake together," he promised, and Gaia frowned.

"Erik I'm so sorry. I never, ever wanted to see you like this…"

"Like what?" He asked. "So completely in love that I cannot bear to let you go?" He kissed his wife deeply, again and again as she began to cry. "Please don't leave me, Gaia."

"I don't want to, Erik," she cried painfully, returning each and every kiss. "I never want to be apart from you. Erik I'm so afraid I won't ever see you again."

"Don't say that, Gaia! Don't even think such a thing. We will be together again, My Love. I swear on my life, we will be together."

"Please, Erik, don't make a promise you cannot keep-" she begged, and Erik shook his head tearfully.

"I will keep it, Gaia. I swear I will see you again. I will never be happy again until I do."

Gaia shook her head. "Please don't say that… I don't ever want to think of you unhappy. Our children need you to be happy…"

"I can't, Gaia. I simply can't. I need you."

Gaia shook her head and coughed heavily before she could protest, crying quietly. Erik stroked her hair and kissed at her tears. Ever so softly he began to sing a gentle little Italian lullaby that she had used to sing to their children when they had trouble sleeping. Gaia's tears quieted before long, nestling into his chest. "I love you, Erik," she whispered quietly into his chest, closing her eyes.

"I love you too, Gaia. Get some rest. I'll see you in the morning," he told her softly, and she nodded quietly.

When Erik awoke the following morning, Gaia was gone. She was still nestled into his arms, eyes closed gently and lips parted slightly in a subconscious attempt to ease her breathing that had not availed. Erik wailed in anguish and pulled his limp wife into his arms, shaking her firmly in a desperate attempt to coax her to breathe. Adrian bolted into the room and collapsed on the floor in grief at the sight of his father in tears, cradling his mother who simply would not respond.

Cadence walked into the room, holding her little kitten carefully with one hand as she wiped the sleep from her eyes. "Papa? Mama? What's wrong?"

Adrian pulled the girl into his arms and put the kitten gently down onto the floor to hold his little sister tightly as he cried.

"Take her away!" Erik shouted in anguish, burring his face into his wife's hair. "Take her out of here!"

"But Papa-"

"Do as I say, Adrian!" The man barked before sobbing, and Cadence began to cry.

"Adrian what's wrong? Why is Papa angry?" Shaking, the young man stood and took his sister's hand after she picked up her furry little bundle.

"Come downstairs and have some water, Cadence," Adrian insisted, walking downstairs with sister in tow as the upstairs erupted in noise. Glass shattered, wood splintered, and Cadence's cries of fear prompted Adrian move back upstairs, throwing open the door of his father's bedroom and shouting at the man.

"Papa, stop this! You're scaring Cadence!" The young man commanded, ducking as his father hurled a clock at him viciously. "Father STOP! She wouldn't want you to be like this!" Adrian told him tearfully. "She would never want you to destroy everything you have!"

Adrian's insistence did nothing, and finally the young man rushed forward and grabbed his father by the arms in an attempt to restrain him. Erik fought ferociously, but the boy was strong like his father an the man was weak from grief. Erik finally collapsed to the floor in tears, clutching at his son desperately. "I can't live without her. I can't live. I want to die," he wailed in anguish, and Adrian hugged him tightly, greatly unnerved by his father's unusual display of emotion.

"You have to, Papa. Cadence needs you. I need you. You're our father… without her we need you more than ever," Adrian told him, tearfully.

Erik cried and cried until Cadence appeared in the doorway again, wiping at her eyes. Erik spotted her and frowned deeply, opening an arm to welcome her. Cadence moved into his arms and Erik held her children tightly.

If he was ever going to survive the loss of his wife, he was going to need his children as much as they needed him.


	30. Chapter 30

Gaia was buried next to her father in a cemetery just outside of Rome. All five of her sisters and their husbands were in attendance, as well as several of her father's friends who had known her in childhood. Nearly all in attendance avoided the family like the, none of them ever having seen in Erik quite what Gaia saw. Now an old man, the physician Sergio was the only man brave enough to approach the tall, solid man and the children who stood before him.

"Erik, my boy. It's been a long time," Greeted the man, sadly. "I regret that we are meeting again under such trying circumstances."

"It has been, Signore. Children, this is Sergio Masino, a family friend. Signore Masino, these are my children Adrian and Cadence," Erik introduced quietly. The boy bowed his head politely and little Cadence curtsied sweetly as they mumbled their greetings.

"I offer you all my deepest sympathies. Gaia was a sweet, sweet girl."

"She was the perfect wife and mother," Erik told him quietly. "The world is a darker place without her."

The physician nodded. "My boy, I know it is soon, but I was hoping to convince you to move back to Rome. You might find the support you need from the Brotherhood."

Erik shook his head firmly. "With all due respect, Signore, I wish to remain in the home I built for my wife."

Again the old man nodded. "I had thought you would say that. Should you change your mind though, please call upon me and your brothers."

"Most of them do not seem to care about us either way," Erik remarked, watching several of the men he recognized from the Freemasonry leave without so much as a word of condolence.

"Most of them are terrified stiff of you, my boy. They do not know of your good nature," Sergio admitted, and Erik hung his head quietly. "Truly, Erik. A son of Giovanni's is a son of mine. If you need anything at all, please call on me. Adrian, Cadence, it was a pleasure to meet you even under these conditions."

With that the old man left the small family alone, standing in front of the woman's grave and the stone marker Erik had engraved for the occasion.

Gaia Renard ___née Turri. _

___1830-1864._

___Loving daughter, wife, and mother._

There what else was one to put on a grave marker? Promises that death is not the end? Erik refused; he could not hold her, could not kiss her, love her, or hear her laugh any longer. They would never again bicker or forgive one another for their arguments. He would never again be able to chase her up the stairs while she played coy, or stay up all night long talking about how beautiful their life was.

Adrian's voice broke him from his reverie. "Everybody loved Mama, didn't they?"

"Yes," Erik answered quietly. "Most everybody she's ever met has loved her deeply. She was a wonderful woman."

"They didn't like that she married you, did they?"

Erik hung his head. "No. I suppose they didn't. But she never seemed to mind, and neither did I."

Adrian nodded quietly. After a long moment of silence, Erik finally turned to leave when Cadence spoke.

"Papa? Did Mama go to heaven?"

The man frowned deeply, unsure of what to say. He longed to comfort the girl with a simple, convicted yes… But Erik simply did not know the answer. He had such negative experiences regarding the church that he had decided long ago not to bother with such hypocrisies. Whether or not there was a God he simply didn't know, nor had he particularly cared until that moment.

Fortunately, Adrain came to his senses before Erik did. "Of course she did, Cadence. She's in heaven right now with Angel. I think they're both looking down at us right now and wondering why we're so sad."

"I miss her, Adrian."

"So do I, Cadence."

"As do I," Erik told them quietly, squeezing each of their shoulders. Cadence moved to hug him around his legs, and Erik crouched to cup her face in his hands. "You look so much like her, you know. Your eyes especially. Yours too, Adrian," Erik smiled up to the boy. "You both inherited your mother's eyes. And her extraordinary patience," the man added quietly. "Which is something I am going to need from you both, perhaps for a long time. I am not fit to be a father. I wasn't fit to be a husband either, but I learned. Perhaps with time I will become a halfway decent father to you both. But I beg your patience with me until then."

Adrian nodded and Cadence kissed her father's masked cheeked. "You are wonderful father, Papa," Cadence told him more eloquently than surely any other girl her age. "I wouldn't trade you for any other father in the world."

"Nor would I," promised Adrian quietly. "I don't need much looking after anyway, and I can help with Cadence while you go to the market."

Erik wiped tears from his eyes awkwardly from around the mask, and he kissed his daughter's pretty little forehead before picking her up and embracing his son with his free arm. "Thank you both. I know I don't say it very often, but I love you both very much. I don't know what I would do without the two of you right now."

"Let's go home, Papa," Adrian insisted, embracing his father back. The man nodded and took a shaking breath. "Would you take Cadence to the carriage? I will meet you there in a moment."

Adrian took his little sister from their father and moved to the carriage while Erik turned back to the headstone. He kneeled and ran his fingers through the freshly turned soil finding it a poor substitute for his wife's luxurious chestnut hair. He held it to his face and breathed in its smell with a quiet sob. What he wouldn't give to feel her again, to smell her sweet hair. He kissed the soil gently, wishing for one more chance to kiss her sweet, soft lips. "Goodbye, My Love," he whispered quietly, returning the soil to the grave and standing to meet his children.

He moved into the kitchen when they returned home to prepare supper, and Adrian took Cadence outside to play with Sophie, trying his best to be happy in the light of the day's events. The family ate quietly around the table before Adrian spoke, trying to lighten the mood. "Do you remember the day I walked in on you and Mama having sex?"

Erik nearly spit out his wine in shock. "Adrian!"

The boy grinned from ear to ear. "You didn't think I remembered, did you? I remember everything since I was a baby," Adrian told his father.

The man couldn't help but laugh. "Ah, yes. I do remember that actually. Your mother hid in the bathroom so that I would be the one to explain to you what it was you had seen. You thought I was attacking her…"

"That was when you gave me Sophie, something like a week before my birthday!"

Erik laughed. "I was hoping to distract you from our embarrassment."

"It worked," smiled Adrian. "And what about the time you and she got so wrapped up in one another that she forgot about dinner and burned everything?"

"I remember that too. I believe that was the only time she ever ruined a meal in her entire life," Erik smiled fondly. "We had to eat dried meat and bread for dinner."

Cadence spoke up. "What about the time Adrian wanted to put on a play, and Mama played the Fairy Godmother?"

Erik smiled. "And you played Cinderella to Adrian's prince. It was a truly remarkable production, as I recall. I don't think I've ever seen your mother wear so much make-up before or since."

"I did her make up." Cadence grinned. "I tried to make her look like an old woman."

"She was still beautiful," Adrian said with a smile. "Even when she was her sickest she was the most beautiful woman in all of Italy."

Erik nodded his agreement. "She was. We are very, very lucky to have known her. Did I ever tell you about what happened the day you were born, Adrian?" The boy shook his head, and Erik continued. "Gaia went into labor quite earlier than we had expected. I went as fast as I could into Modena to find the midwife, but she was not to be found. I took the only midwife I could find back here. Your mother was in labor for hours and hours. I was scared half to death, and the wretched woman wouldn't let me into the room. Finally the room upstairs became quiet, but there was no baby crying. Your mother started shouting, so I ran upstairs to see what was wrong. She had picked you up off the bed, cord still attached and was trying furiously to get you to cry. Before I even saw your face I took you and forced you to gasp that first breath. Gaia took you into her arms and cried with relief while I raged at the midwife. She told me about your face and ran from the room. When I looked back at your mother, she was wiping you clean ever so gently, still weeping from stress and relief. She was so looking forward to your birth. I on the other hand was terrified about how she might react if her first child was born like me. But she didn't care. She loved you well before you were born, and never stopped loving you for a moment. She was more upset for you than anything. She knew what a difficult life I had had, and never wanted that for you for a moment."

Adrian smiled down at his plate. "She was the best mother I could have asked for."

"What about me, Papa?" Cadence asked with a small smile. "What happened when I was born?"

"You made us very nervous," Erik smiled. "Your mother had lost a baby before we had you, and we were nervous she might lose you too. But she didn't. The labor was shorter, but nerve wracking. We could not find a midwife to deliver you, and I was afraid there might be a complication in the birth. But it went off without a hitch. When I picked you up to clean you, I was awestruck by your beauty. You were so small, so perfect. I finally came to my senses and got you cleaned up, and Gaia literally gasped when she first saw you, you were so beautiful. And you still are," Erik promised, causing Cadence to smile sweetly.

Adrian took their plates to the kitchen, and Erik sent Cadence upstairs to get ready for bed. Erik moved into Cadence's bedroom and wished her goodnight before moving into Adrian's to do the same. The boy was seated on his bed, looking down at the floor. When Erik entered he looked up with a thoughtful frown. "Are you going to be all right tonight, Papa? You can sleep in here if you want."

"I'll be fine, mon fils," Erik promised. "Sleep well."

"You too, Papa."

Erik moved into his room, closing the door carefully behind him and regarding the bed for a long moment. He had not slept since the night his wife passed away, and was utterly exhausted… but he was not quite certain he was ready to return to the bed he and Gaia had shared. He sat in the rocking chair Gaia had nursed both of their children in, not realizing he had drifted off to sleep when he heard a voice that was so very familiar.

"Why do you sleep in a chair, Husband? You are exhausted," she the voice, and when Erik looked down at its source he found his wife sitting by his feet, as lovely as she had been in life.

Leaning over and stroking her cheek gently, he frowned as he spoke. "I don't know that I would be able to sleep without your weight in it. Gaia… It's been only two days and already I miss you terribly. I cannot believe a week ago you were in my arms. And now… now my mind is contenting itself with a ghost," he frowned, realizing that this could not possibly be real. Gaia leaned into his touch and cupped her hand in his.

"I miss you too, Erik. More than I can bear. But you have a full life ahead of you. You are still so young! Thirty five is hardly anything, you know. You will live to see our grandchildren, maybe even our great grand children. There are so many wonderful contributions you have yet to make to the world. Things that you could not have done if I had lived," she frowned quietly.

"None of them are worth your life!" Exclaimed Erik, cupping her face with his other hand and kissing her ghost soundly. "I would rather spend another moment with you than rebuild the Sistine Chapel!"

"I know, Husband, I know. But that simply cannot happen. Mourn here for as long as you need… but please do not spend your life alone in the country. Move back to Rome, return to France, see the world like you always wanted to do. I only ask that you take the children with you and show them its wonders as well. They have never known anything beyond the market place. Let them see in freedom what you could only see through a cage. It will be good for them, and for you."

"I don't ever want to leave, Gaia. I want to stay here, with you…"

"Yet you refuse to sleep in our bed?" She told more than asked, smiling sadly. "I understand mourning, Erik, believe me. But you mustn't let it consume. You've already destroyed half of our belongings. You through a clock at Adrian for Christ sake."

Erik hung his head. "I do need to apologize to him for that…"

"Yes, you do. Come to bed with me, Erik, for one last time," she coaxed him, taking his hand from her face and guiding him into bed. Erik followed her obediently and slipped into the sheets with her, pulling her into his arms. Her smell enveloped him the moment his head touched the pillow, the dream seemed as real as ever. Gaia hummed the little lullaby he had sang to her the night she died, the same one she had sung to her children a hundred times.

When Erik opened his eyes again it was late morning, and he was alone in bed. In his arms was Gaia's pillow, drenched in her scent. Erik breathed it deeply, and in spite of his sadness could not help but smile; he had needed to see her again, and he had. Perhaps he was not as alone as he felt after all.


	31. Chapter 31

**Author's Note:** Why is it the further into a story I get, the less happy I am with the quality of the work? I've scrapped this chapter and rewritten it twice now, and it has officially taken up far too much of my life to keep fussing over. I have to admit, I'm rather regretting killing off our heroine, and I deeply, sincerely apologize for the dullness of the end of this story. Maybe I'll go back and give it a happier ending someday. Anyway the chapter is divided into three parts so that I wouldn't have to drag you all through three whole chapters of a story we all already know. One more chapter after this one!

* * *

"It isn't fair to take Cadence away from home, Papa!" Sixteen year old Adrian complained, now entirely a man in his father's eyes and in the eyes of the Venetian men who employed him as one of the chief engineers working on the problem of the sinking city. "She's only eight. How is she going to learn to be a lady traveling from place to place her whole childhood?"

"Well she's certainly not going to learn how to be a lady from either of us," Erik pointed out. "You'll both learn more from seeing the world than I could ever teach you here."

"Oh really?" Adrian countered, his voice dripping with sarcasm. "I suppose you're going to strap the piano and our entire library to the back of the carriage?"

Erik glared at his son. "Don't take that attitude with me, boy. It is what your mother wanted-"

"Not this again, Papa! It was only a dream. And a perfectly explainable one at that! You hadn't slept in days, and it was the first night after Mama's funeral… of course you dreamed about her. I did too, and I'm sure Cadence did as well. But you don't see us rearranging our whole lives because of it!"

The tall man sat in his chair by the bookshelf and rubbed his face in frustration. "You will learn more traveling the world than you ever will staying here, Adrian."

"What more have I to learn, Papa? I have a career here that will last me a lifetime. Cadence could start going to the girl's school in Venice and learn how to be a proper lady. Neither of us could teach her that in a hundred years, you were right about that."

Quietly Erik rubbed the back of his neck, deep in thought. "Adrian, do you feel like I am holding you back?"

The young man opened his mouth as if to answer before closing it again and hanging his head some. "I think we'd be better suited here than traveling is all."

"And you think we would be better suited in Venice than here," Erik stated plainly, and after a moment Adrian nodded.

"Well, yes. It's the nearest girl's school for Cadence, and it's where I'm working now. It's quite a pain to spend a whole week there and then a whole week here. If we all went to Venice it would be easier…"

Erik thought for a long moment before choosing his words very carefully. "I think you should take Cadence to Venice."

"…What do you mean I should take her? Surely you would come with us?"

The man shook his head. "No, Adrian. Whether you believe the dream I had about your mother has any substance or not, I believe she was right. There are things I ought to do while I am still young enough to do them, now that I have the chance. You have been as good a role model for Cadence as I ever have been, perhaps even a better one for all of the qualities of your mother you possesses. I know you would take exceptional care of her, and goodness knows you can take very good care of yourself."

Adrian frowned, deeply. "Papa, I don't want to go to live in Venice if you're not going to be with us."

"Nonsense mon fils. You would do brilliantly there. And you are right about Cadence. She ought to go to school, and learn about people. She is different than us, and must learn to get along in her own way the same as we have. Your mother went to school herself, until her mother died. She didn't care for it much but at the very least it taught her about human nature."

"I'm only sixteen, Papa! I can't take care of Cadence by myself!"

"She'll be in school during the days, or even all week if you put her in the dormitories. You'll have plenty of time to work and keep time to yourself besides. She's an easy child and you know it."

"I won't let you just abandon us, Papa! It isn't right!" Adrian scolded him, and Erik chuckled gently.

"I am not abandoning you, mon fils. I am simply going away for a little while. I will write, and even visit when I am in the area. It's not as if I am moving across any oceans."

* * *

A year later the arrangements had been made, and Erik traveled with his children to Venice to help them settle in to their new home.

"You certainly picked a fine house, Adrian," Erik praised with an appreciative smile. "I do believe it is one of your grandfather's, actually."

Adrian's eyes widened. "Do you really think so?"

"I do. His design at the very least. It has quite a bit of his personality in the stonework," Erik smiled, and Adrian smiled back, wishing not for the first time that he had been able to meet the man who had so inspired his father. Cadence stepped inside carrying her tabby-type cat gently in her arms with a small frown.

Erik frowned in turn and crouched to kiss her forehead. "Why do you frown, my darling angel?"

"I miss our house is all."

"There were very many memories there," Adrian agreed with a bit of a frown.

"Which is precisely why I didn't sell it, children. You will be able to return whenever you please. I could not bear the house I built for your mother leaving out family, and I expect you will enjoy it for many years to come. I expect to grow old and gray in it myself some day," Erik smiled reassuringly, and Cadence nodded.

"When are you leaving Papa?" She asked sweetly.

"Not until you two are both so busy you won't even notice I'm gone. A few weeks at least, maybe a month or two," he promised, kissing her forehead again. "Why don't you go and pick your bedroom, darling?"

The girl moved upstairs, more excited than she cared to be at the newness of it all. She had spent her entire life inside the walls of the house on the vineyard, never venturing past the marketplace in Modena. Venice was a much larger city, with much more people and much less privacy than she was used to. It was different, but not necessarily bad, she decided.

Adrian helped his father arrange the furnishings downstairs. "I've decided not to place her in the dormitories. It will be hard enough with you being away, I would feel better with her in the house," Adrian admitted quietly, and Erik nodded.

"Frankly, I am more comfortable with her here with you as it is. She is such an incredibly bright girl I am terrified of what her peers will make of her."

"If she is bullied for even a moment I will make the little tarts regret it, you may rest assured," Adrian murmured, and Erik laughed at the boy's uncharacteristic display of viciousness.

"Adrian!"

"…Sorry Papa," the young man muttered, embarrassed that he had been heard but not regretting his words in the least. "Anyway, I don't really like staying alone. I think I'm going to get a dog as well. The house always felt safe with you in it, but now-"

"I think that is a very good idea," agreed Erik. "Really Adrian, you mustn't worry too much. I would not dare leave if I thought anything would happen. You did get your tendency to worry from me, after all," the man pointed out, and Adrian smiled gently.

"Yes, I suppose I did. Mama used to get so annoyed with you…"

"And what you saw wasn't even the half of it. She and I had many an argument about her condition. To be fair, she was right every time until the last one," he conceded, and Adrian nodded quietly.

"Adrian, Papa! I've picked my room! Come see it, it's huge, and I even left the biggest one for Adrian!"

* * *

True to his promise, Erik wrote his children as often as he could find the time and supplies. For years the pair received letter from such wonderful places as Vienna, Berlin, Prague, Budapest, Moscow, St. Petersberg, Azerbaijan; for two three solid years letters came daily, all of them addressed from a place called Mazenderan in Persia. Erik described the palace as eloquently as any poet, though as the years progressed his letters became more brief and darker. There were nights Adrian wasn't sure he should read Cadence the letters at all, but she would insist upon it, staging a hunger strike until she was allowed to see the letter herself so she would know her brother was not lying to her.

The letters described a wicked witch, forests of death, and castles with trick doors and hidden passages, things that could not possibly be real but somehow Adrian found it hard to believe his father, a serious man would make up such tales. He wished now he had gone with his father and could see the world through his eyes and know exactly what Erik meant by his fantastic letters.

Without warning, the letters which for three years had arrived daily without fail ceased arriving. For a month Cadence would wait by the door for the post, eagerly gathering every piece of mail searching for her father's familiar labored penmanship. The siblings had begun to think the worst when one day a letter arrived on ugly, rough parchment, bearing their father's laboriously scratched writing in dull ink.

"To my darling children,

I beg your forgiveness for the sudden cessation of my letters. I can only imagine what you must have thought after so many days in a row of writing. I was forced to flee Mazenderan quite suddenly, and while I do not wish to worry you I must confess I am grateful for the chance to write to you at all after the events of that last day in Persia. The prince I told you of, the Daroga of Mazenderan was crucial to my escape. I spoke to him often of you, and I should not wonder if he attempts to find you if he is forced to flee the country himself for sparing my life. Persia was not the wondrous place I once thought it to be. It wears a mask much as I do, and what lies beneath is as terrifying as its mask is pristine and beautiful. At any rate should you meet a dark skinned man who seems to know you, I beg you house him. Without his help I would never hold the hope of seeing you both again, and for that I am forever in his debt. My writings will become less frequent again I am afraid, but this will fortunately not be the last you hear from your loving father."

When Erik arrived in Paris, finally the children received an address at which they might be able to return his letters. He told them he had purchased a small flat while he worked on his final project before returning home to Italy. It was not far from the truth, though he purposefully neglected to tell them how difficult life in Paris was and how hard money was to come by. Parisians were a cruel race, more unforgiving about the nature of Erik's mass than the Italians and the Persians had been. France was as vain as it had been when he first left it, Erik seethed.

His discontent was lifted when he received his first letter from Adrian and Cadence, and his depression turned to sheer joy when out of the envelope came a photograph of a beautiful young woman and a tall, masked man standing behind her where she sat. The letter itself was pages and pages long, bringing Erik to tears; he truly had not realized how much he missed his children until the arrival of their letter had brought the sad fact that he had missed five years of their lives. How they had grown in five short years! Cadence was surely a woman now, fourteen years old with her mother's brightness lighting up her eyes. Adrian was at least a head taller judging by his height against the furnishings of the venetian home where the photograph had been taken. Cadence had left school and was teaching piano and voice to young women in Venice, and was being pursued by a man nearly twice her age whom Adrian had on one occasion been forced to quite literally chase off the property. Adrian was now twenty two, heading a project to slow the sinking of Venice and courting a young nurse rather unsuccessfully. So like his father, the young man rambled on for pages about the woman's beauty, praising her and cursing her in the same breath. They had met when he had a coughing fit one week not unlike those his mother was prone too, and Cadence had insisted he visit the hospital. The poor boy had been lovestruck ever since, and would be until the day he died, he vowed, if only the girl would let him.

Erik kept the small flat even when he moved into the more hospitable cellars of the Opera he soon completed building, venturing out daily to received letters from his children and to mail them post in return. He neglected to mention the change in his residence, and did not mention the reason for his delayed return home was a young woman by the name of Christine Daae until the day he decided he would marry the girl who was so like his sweet Gaia and be a widower no more. More and more, his children's letters became the man's only remaining link to sanity in his solitude and loneliness, the one thing that would not abandon him as his wife had, and as the newfound object of his desires was soon to do.


	32. Chapter 32

Adrian frowned when he peered in the window of the flat at the address; the entire space was empty. There was not a piece of furniture to be seen in the place, not even a rug on the floor.

"He has to have been here! He's been responding to our letters," frowned Cadence, peering in the window next to her brother. "Maybe he's only just moved?"

The young man shook his head. "Look, there's dust on the mantle. You remember how clean Papa kept the house. If he just moved there wouldn't be nearly so much dust so soon."

The young woman chewed her lip. "Well. Do you suppose we could ask around the Opera for him? He did say he was giving singing lessons to his new…" Cadence couldn't even stand to say the word 'wife'. It was upsetting enough that their father had left them for so long; the fact he was even considering remarrying without thought to his children made her sick to her stomach.

"That's not a bad idea," Adrian conceded, moving down away from the flat back to the main streets while his sister took his arm.

"Papa sure did pick a lovely place to live. The people are strange though. They keep staring at us funny. Do you think they can tell we're foreign?"

Adrian chuckled some, coldly. "No, Cadence. They are staring because of my mask. I forget that people in Venice are simply used to me by now. Besides, we are known for our masks, Parisians are not."

They passed an elegant, dark skinned man as they walked down the street, who regarded them intently as they passed. Adrian gave the man a firm glare as if to ask him what it was he was staring at. The man seemed very confused, and let them pass before daring to speak in heavily accented French. "Excuse me, Monsieur… your name wouldn't happy to be Adrian, would it?"

Adrian froze in his tracks and turned back to the man. Cadence stood behind her brother, peering around his shoulder curiously. "It would be. How did you – My God. You're Nadir Khan aren't you? Our father mentioned you in his letters once or twice. How did you-"

"I could have sworn from a distance you were your father. I was quite shocked to see him out and about in a mask and not with that false nose of his, and with a lady no less. He mentioned you quite often, when he was less of a recluse. I must admit though, I was beginning to think you were a figment of his wild imagination. Please, I was about to have lunch. Won't you join me?"

"We would love to," announced Cadence with a lovely smile, not bothering to wait for her brother's response. Adrian gave her a hard look but sighed and nodded to the man, who smiled broadly.

"Wonderful! You must tell me all about yourselves! Your father was very vague in his descriptions of you both, albeit accurate."

Cadence smiled as they began to walk with the man, entranced by his exoticness and stories of the father she mostly knew through letters. "What did he tell you about us, Monsieur Khan?"

"Well, assuming you are his Cadence, he mentioned that you were tied for the most beautiful lady in the entire world, next to your mother. It's clear he was not exaggerating on that point," Nadir smiled, and Cadence flushed with girlish delight at the praise. "He said the both of you were quite bright, which is also very clear. You certainly speak better French than I do, and you're no more a native than I am."

"Italian and French are both rooted in Latin," Adrian explained. "It is not so difficult to learn one once you know the other."

Nadir chuckled. "He mentioned you looked like him, but took more after your mother in nature. I'm certain that's the case, for your father would have boasted about knowing a hundred unrelated languages fluently, and would have called me a lazy fool for only knowing three."

"Monsieur Khan? Why do you speak of our father in the past tense?" Inquired Cadence as they stepped up to the door of the man's flat. "He is in Paris as well, surely you knew that?"

The exotic man hung his head some as they stepped inside. "Yes, I am well aware. I am afraid his private nature has quite exaggerated itself as of late. He hasn't been to see me in quite some time."

"Do you know where he's living now? We went to the flat he addresses his letters from, but it looks as if it has been empty for years," asked Adrian as they stepped inside.

"Why, he hasn't lived in that flat for ages. I believe he abandoned it as soon as the Opera was finished. He built a house for himself in the Opera, to keep away from the strange looks and rather rude, even dangerous remarks of many of the people. Things I'm certain you've experienced yourself, even if you haven't been here long. Parisians wear a variety of masks, but not like the ones you and your father share."

Adrian frowned some, and was quiet through lunch as Cadence and Nadir exchanged vivid stories of Persia and Venice, each one finding the other's tales quite extraordinary.

"You say the city is truly sinking? Why, it sounds like a Greek myth!"

"Not at all! Seven centimeters a century, they say. And what's more, the water in the Adriatic is rising and might spill into the city one day! Adrian will never be out of work, that's for certain; he's the head engineer trying to keep the water in check."

"More like your father than he said!" Praised Nadir, causing Adrian to smile.

"I am proud to hear you say that, Monsieur. It's been years since we've seen him, but I admire him very much."

Nadir did not dare mention that he could not imagine anyone admiring Erik, though it was becoming increasingly clear to him that the Erik they knew in their childhood was more like the man when he arrived in Persia and less like the man who left… and even less like the man who currently haunted the cellars of the Opera Garnier.

"Monsieur, you say our father is actually living in the Opera? How does he manage such a thing? I've never heard of anybody living in an Opera besides perhaps in the dormitories. Surely those would be no better than braving the streets of Paris?" Inquired Cadence curiously, and the man frowned.

"Well. He built a rather intricate home for himself in the cellars of the Opera,"

Adrian nearly choked on his water. "Our father is living in the cellars of an Opera House?"

"I am sorry to be the one to inform you, children. On my life, I thought he would have told you such a thing. He has been the resident Opera Ghost there for years, after being cheated from his share of the commission on the Opera. Or so he claims. It is rather hard to tell with Erik sometimes, his stories are quite… grandiose."

"Could you perhaps tell us where to find him? It is very important that we see him. Not only for sentimental reasons, but I fear he is about to make a grave mistake and marry a woman-"

"Christine Daae! Yes, I am aware of the situation! Her suitor is quiet upset over the matter! Children if you could talk him out of his madness all of Paris would be in your debt. He is… unwell, I am afraid. I will certainly take you to him if you can make him well again!"

The three hurriedly finished their meal and went straight to the Opera Garnier. Adrian was greeted with dangerous looks, and could only imagine how many more people must have thought he was his father… the local theatre Ghost! Every theatre reportedly had one, but Adrian had never imagined his father would stoop to masquerading as a phantom for any reason at all.

* * *

Far below the Opera, Christine Daae pled with her captor. "Please, Erik. I know you wish to keep me forever, but I need sunlight, Angel. I need people," she nearly begged, using her sweetest voice to try and win him over. How the man adored her! It was terrifying the lengths to which he was willing to go to win her love… but she could not stay. No matter how she desired to love him, she could not love a man with death's face.

"No," snapped the man. "You do not think your Angel craves people as well? That is why you must stay with me, My Darling. You must keep your Poor Erik company in his loneliness. You needn't worry; soon we will be married, and nothing will ever make you unhappy ever again."

Suddenly a ring came from a bell Christine could not place, and Erik's whole body became tense. He vanished, and let out a cry from somewhere above her. She could not place the mixed emotion behind the cry… it was some strange combination of anguish and overwhelming joy.

"My children! My sweet, beautiful children!" He cried, returning and moving past Christine into the Louise-Phillipe bedroom to greet the brief victims of the torture chamber very few living people knew existed.

"Papa!" Exclaimed Cadence, throwing herself into the man's arms and weeping joyously. When Christine fell to the floor in a faint, Erik did not even notice as he held his daughter and cried with her.

"Cadence, my darling, my little dove! How much you've grown! And Adrian…" Erik looked from his daughter to the man standing in the doorframe, awkwardly. Cadence let go of her father and wiped the dears from her eyes with a laugh. Erik opened his arms to Adrian, who strode into them and allowed them to embrace him tightly.

"We missed you, Papa. I wish you had never left…"

"Adrian, I beg that you not think ill of me. I've learned so much… so much I never could have dreamed of in our perfect little home."

"I don't think ill of you, Papa!" Adrian promised, firmly. "I could never in all my life think ill of you… unless you have married this Daae woman without first consulting us! I object a thousand times to a step mother my own age!"

Erik frowned deeply, and looked back to Christine, who was now being tended by his old friend who had brought the children to him. "She is fine," the Daroga promised. "She's had a fainting spell is all."

"French women actually do that?" Cadence asked, mortified; she couldn't imagine anything being so dramatic that she might faint!

"Unfortunately, yes. Quite often it seems," frowned Erik.

"What about Mama?" Demanded Adrian, not willing to let the subject drop just yet. "She agreed that she would want you to remarry, but like Constance Mozart did, remember? A completely innocent marriage, only for companionship. Papa she is beautiful, and the way you wrote about her… I do not approve. I do not want to watch you replace our mother as if she never existed, not when she loved you so desperately."

Erik opened his mouth to argue, but Cadence interrupted him. "Papa… Adrian is right. I don't remember much of those early years, but I do remember how much you and Mama were in love. I remember thinking if I could ever find a husband to love me as much as you loved her, I would surely be the luckiest girl alive. This… girl is not a wife for a man who has had such love!"

The older man hung his head some. "I… I cannot explain my affections for her. She views me as a father, I know that much. And much of it is my own fault. Perhaps… perhaps it is my longing for our old lives that has drawn me to her so," Erik frowned thoughtfully. "When I think of her now she does not affect me as strongly as she did even just before you arrived…"

"Papa, why didn't you just come home when the building was finished, like you promised?"

"…I had no money. I was too ashamed to tell you. Do you remember when you were a boy and I came into my inheritance, and you thought we were rich? How disappointed you were when you found out that wasn't the case?"

Adrian nodded, and Erik sighed some. "I thought to write to ask you for the money to travel home, but I simply couldn't. I was too proud. Too demented… traveling alone is such a weary task! There are so many temptations, so many ill paths… I never should have gone without the two of you to keep me on the proper road. I made very many mistakes I am far too ashamed to admit. At any rate, when those of us who worked so hard on the building never were paid, I decided to start… extorting the managers. I taught them how to run an opera, really. The sorts of people to hire, what shows to perform. And I caused a good deal of mischief besides. Initially I had meant to save up enough to leave, but then I met Christine. Poor, innocent Christine, who thought I was the Angel of Music by my own deceitful trickery. I could not leave, not when the poor girl needed me. And then I began to need her," Erik explained, looking back to the girl.

"Papa… Take her back to her suitor. Make her think this was all just a dream. Come home with us, back to the house you built for Mama. We can be a family again. You and I will live together in the vineyard, Adrian will come and visit us on the weekends and we'll visit Mama's grave on Sundays. None of this will ever have to have happened," Cadence pled, taking her father's hands between hers.

Erik's brow furrowed under the mask. "I don't know, my darling. I've come to loathe the loneliness of life…"

"Your life will only be lonely here, not in Italy," Adrian promised. "Cadence will care for you, like Mama cared for her father. You always said they were terribly close. And she is right, I will visit every weekend, and on holidays. We will each give you grandchildren someday that you can spoil rotten, too! Can France promise you that?"

The man chuckled. "No, I don't suppose it can."

"Go with your children, Erik," Nadir urged. "Right this moment if you're going to. I will take care of things here, you have my word. The girl will think it was all a dream. The only evidence of the Opera Ghost will be the chandelier in bits and pieces, just as you left it," the Daroga promised, and Erik took a breath.

"All right. Home to Italy it is."

When Christine awoke she was nestled in bed with the face of an old friend standing above her, smiling with relief. "Oh, Christine! You had quit a bump on the head, I'm so glad you're all right!"

"… Raoul! Raoul what are you doing here? Erik will- Wait. Where are we, Raoul?"

"In my flat, on the Rue di Rivoli," explained a man Christine had seen before, of dark skin with eyes of jade. "I hope you do not mind, I brought you here when I found you in the cellars of the Opera. I contacted your friend here as soon as I recognized who you were."

"You found me in the cellars?"

"Yes. Though what you were doing all the way down there I cannot imagine. There's nothing but rats ghosts down there-"

"Ghosts, yes! Raoul, my Angel! He is the Opera Ghost, a man called Erik! Oh you wouldn't believe where I have been!"

Nadir chuckled and spoke to Raoul. "Quite an imagination Mademoiselle has."

Raoul laughed. "Yes, quite! Some things never change. There is no Opera Ghost, Christine. And no Angel of Music either, I promise you. It was simply some prank by one of the stagehands that went too far, I'm sure of it."

Christine never heard from her Angel again, and was inclined to believe that Raoul may have been right. Perhaps there never was any Angel of Music, or any Opera Ghost at all… perhaps it had all been a dream after all.

Only a handful of people knew that the Opera Ghost had ever existed, and that he was really a man who had experienced extraordinary hardship and equally extraordinary greatness in his long life. He had loved a woman more deeply than even the greatest poets could express, and shared in the lives of his two wonderful children, their spouses, and eventually in the lives of his grandchildren. When finally he passed away at the age of seventy six, his love was there to meet him on the other side with open arms.

Gaia littered her husband's face with kisses, tears of joy streaming down her face. Behind her stood Giovanni, smiling proudly at the couple.

"I'll bet you're glad you fell and cracked your head, aren't you my boy?" The man asked with a knowing smile lighting up his kind brown eyes. Erik held his wife firmly against him and smiled back to the only father he had ever known.

"More than words could ever say."

_The End_

* * *

**Author's Note: **I'm definitely happier with the end of this story than I thought I would be two days ago. Thank you so, so much for reading! If you like my work, check out my current project, Letting Go, or any of my other stories that you might not have read yet.

Also, this may not be the last you see of this story. There is a good chance I will someday (not quite someday soon, but maybe this summer), come back and revisit the end of this story. The second to last chapter needs major work... and I might even go further back than that and write an alternative ending where our heroine lives. We'll see. For now I am a stressed out bundle of sick, and for my own sake need to stick to one story at a time.

Again, thank you for reading! It means more to me than words can ever express.


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